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LOST SON 


BY MARY LINSKILL 


17 TO 27 VaNdeWater 3 t 

E WToF\»^' 


^Li 


The Seaside Library, Pocket Edition, Issued Tri-weekly. By Subscription $36 per annum, 
righted 1885, by Qeorge Munro— Entered at the Post Office at New York at second class rates,— June 2, 1885 




















THE 


New York Fireside Companion. 


EsssdM} a Paper for the Hoie Circle. 


PURE, BRIGHT AND INTERESTING. 


THE FIRESIDE COMPANION numbers among its contributors the best of 
living fiction writers. 

Its Detective Stories are the most absorbing ever published, and its spe- 
cialties are features peculiar to this journal. 


A Fashion Article, embracing the newest modes, prices, etc., by a noted 
modiste, is printed in every number. 

The Answers to Correspondents contain reliable information on every con- 
ceivable subject. 


TERMS:— The New York Fireside Companion will be sent for one year, 
on receipt of $3: two copies for $5. Getters-up of clubs can afterward add 
single copies at $2..50 each. We will be responsible for remittances sent in 
Registered Letters or by Post-office Money Orders. Postage free. Specimen 
copies sent free. 


GEORGE MUNRO, Publisher, 

17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 


P. 0. Box 3751. 





A LOST 


SON. 



By MARY LINSKILL. 


j a 



) 13 ^ 



• NEW YORK; 

GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER, 

17 TO 27 VaNDE WATER STREET. 




A LOST SON 


CHAPTEK 1. 

THE NEW COUSIN. 

The liquid drops of tears that you have shed, 

Shall come again, transform’d to orient pearl; 

Advantaging their loan, with interest 
Of ten- times double gain of happiness. 

Shakespeare: King Richard III. 

There was no one but Martin Brooke and Ben Chadwick in the 
shop; the others— Joshua JSerlcote, senior, his wife, and half a dozen 
sons and daughters, were all sitting round the tea-table in the back 
parlor. It was a narrow room and somewhat dim, but the Serlcotes 
were quite contented with it. They had a grand room over the 
shop, tvitli a Brussels carpet and a good piano, and looking-glasses 
and china ornaments, and colored antimacassars in profusion; but 
this was only for visitors. Mrs. Herlcote would as soon have 
thought of taking her sewing into one of the big square pews of the 
parish church as of trying to make herself at home in her front 
parlor. 

Her thin, sour, suspicious-looking face has more color than usual 
this afternoon, her black satin cap-ribbons flutter over the tea-tray, 
she grows confused 07er the sugar, and forgets that Julian, her 
eldest son, likes a double quantity of cream. Julian reminds her 
quietly, and she all but empties the cream- jug into his cup, a pro- 
ceeding noticed by the others without a shade of discontent. 

Even Elizabeth, who is eight years older than her brother, has no 
thought of doing anything but help to spoil him. It only seems 
natural to them all that Julian, who is so handsome and so gentle- 
man-like, and so much admired everywhere, should be treated with 
practical admiration at home. Julian never appears to presume 
uDon this feeling, but it is open to question whether they ever gave 
him a fair opportunity. 

Even Joshua Serlcote, stift, prim old martinet that he wn.s, had a 
secret pride in this son of his. Joshua was a man well to do in the 
world. The well-stocked jeweler’s shop in the Corn Market of 
Lyme-St. -Mary’s had been established by his great-grandfather, and 
the Serlcotes had always held their heads higher than any other 
tradespeople in the somewhat exclusive little town; yet there was a 
line drawn, and he knew it, and he had never made any attempt to 
overstep it in his own person; but could not help exulting a little 
when Julian, oetat. one-and-twenty, came back from a two years’ 


4 A LOST SON. 

sojourn in London and Paris, and took his place on the other side of 
the line quite naturally. 

VYhitehouse, tiie principal lawyer; Dr. Sargent, who was the 
mayor that year, and Mark Oakley, who was the son of a rich 
brewer, knew quite well that young Serlcote had been away for what 
his father termed improvement, or, in other terms, that he had been 
giving his services in large establishments for the sake of gaining 
an extended knowledge of business; but it was also patent to them 
that he had gained knowledge of other things not connected with 
business, and that in consequence of this knowledge, and his mode 
of communicating it, he was decidedly an acquisition to the some- 
what slow society of Lyme- St. -Mary’s. 

He had been at home about a year on this November afternoon, a 
year during which life had been made very pleasant to him. It was 
supposed that he was in the shop gradually learning to take his 
father’s jdace, and occasionally during the forenoon he might be 
found there; but no stranger who saw him standing about chatting 
pleasantly and confidentially with people who hardly knew whether 
to regard themselves as customers or visitors, and who felt a certain 
delicacy in asking for anything they might happen to want, could 
possibly have supposed that his connection with trade was other 
than the pleasant fiction that Julian himself considered it to be. 

If the afternoon was bright and tempting there was usually an 
outdoor engagement to be suddenly remembered — a drive in White- 
house’s wagonette, a boating expedition on the Trent with Oakley 
and his sisters; or in summer time a picnic or a cricket-match, or, 
what was more to his taste, a croquet party. Of his evenings he 
seldom had any account to give, but he had a latch-key, and often 
went in so late that there was no one to be interested in his accounts. 

Of course there was business to be done in the shop, and Joshua 
Serlcote was quite the right man to see that it was neither left un- 
done nor d(me badly. It was well tor him, and he knew that it 
was well, that he had Martin Brooke to trust to. Martin was his 
wife’s nephew— a homeless, penniless, unattractive lad of nineteen 
or thereabouts. The word “ unattractive,” however, had better be 
qualified at once. Martin had strong attractions for his quick-sighted 
uncle; steadiness, punctuality, a habit of silence, and other business- 
like qualities which were not too common, as Joshua knew. 

It was quite possible that Martin had merits less stern and more 
graceful, but these had little chance of coming to the surface of that 
commonplace, monotonous life of his. And there was no one to 
look below the surface; hardly any to take a careful look at that. 
The lad had failings, but no one to excuse them. He had virtues, 
but seen through the depressing medium of indifference, they ap- 
peared very small. 

Martin, like everybody else about the place, is in a state of ex- 
pectancy this afternoon. It is not more than three weeks since 
Joshua Serlcote received a letter from a small town in Northumber- 
land containing the news of his sister’s death, and inclosing an ap- 
peal written by her to him only a few days before that event. 

It was over twenty years since any communication had passed be- 
tween them, but time had not frozen his memories of the kind, gen- 
tle girl, whose only unforgivable sin had been that she had chosen 


A LOST SON. 


5 


to marry a poor man— an artist named Herbert Dyne, who, with no 
capital except his brains and his brush, had yet been courageous 
enough to take to himself a wife. 

He had never repented, nor had she. They had suffered, but they 
had loved — loved with a love that would have made a harder life 
than theirs worth living. It was now about five years since his 
death. From that time until the beginning of her own last illness, 
Mrs. Dyne had supported herself and hel* daughter by keeping a 
school. 

It was this daughter of Herbert and Elizabeth Dyne who was ex- 
pected at No. 17 Corn Market, Lyme-St. -Mary’s, in the county of 
Tientfordshire. All through the dull wintery day — nay, all through 
the week— a curious sense of anticipation had made itself felt, curi- 
ous in many ways. 

It may be said— sadly enough, if you think of it — that not one 
inmate of tnat house thought with any pleasure of the coming 
stranger; so completely a stranger that even her age had to be 
guessed. The dying mother had not thought of anything so unim- 
portant as that when she had written to plead for a home for her 
child. That was the word she had used, “my child.” Later on 
in the letter she had called her Agnes, and Agnes herself had writ- 
ten one or two brief, quiet, simply-expressed notes to her uncle, who 
had imadned therefrom that she was probably some fifteen or six- 
teen years old. That was all that was known of her. 

The household at No. 17 was in nowise a demonstrative one. 
Hardly any member of it knew the real opinion of another on this 
important matter. From the beginning the utmost reserve had been 
used. The four younger children— Fanny, Ellen, John, and Sam 
— had wondered, but only in whispers when they were alone, 
whether they would have to call the stranger “ cousin.” Even Han- 
nah, the talkative maid- servant, who had helped Miss Serlcote to 
prepare the room that was to be devoted to the use of the new in- 
mate, had felt that discretion had to be used in asking questions. 
Perhaps it was because of this outward repression that the inner 
current of expectation had become so strong. 

Probably Julian was troubled less than any one else by his antici- 
pations. One thing was certain: she would not interfere with him 
in any way. His sisters had never interfered; why should she? It 
might be that she would prove an acquisition. If she should be 
very pretty, or musical, or lively, or even stylish-looking, an even- 
ing at home might seem less intolerably slow than such evenings 
had usually seemed hitherto. These and similar vague speculations 
had passed once or twice rapidly through his mind, but they had 
not been strong enough to prepare the way for disappointment. 

Martin, being a young man of fewer external resources, had nat- 
urally given more time to internal surmisings. Imagine him stand- 
ing there behind the long counter, a youth under twenty, rather 
short in figure, somewhat clumsily built, but well and carefully 
dressed. This was usual with him. It had not occurred to him to 
bestow any extra care on his dress because of the expected addition 
to his uncle’s family. His hair, which was of that indefinite color 
which no one ever knows how to name, being neither light nor 
dark, nor blown nor red, was yet very nice hair in its way. It always 


6 


A LOST SON. 


looked soft and lirigbt and well cared for. Ills complexion was of 
a type not so difBculi to classify, being decidedly a bad one, but bis 
eyes went far to redeem any defect of Ibat kind. If you bad looked 
into Martin Brooke’s eyes once you could bardly belp wishing to 
look into them again. They were ratber large, and of a bright 
biue-gray, but it was tbe expression, not tbe size nor Ibe color, that 
attracted you. You saw a real buman soul in tbem, and a gentle, 
kindly, unselfisb soul it was, but somewhat sad withal, if you bad 
sufficient acquaintance with sadness to be able to discern it in such 
an uninteresting person as tbe young man behind tbe counter of a 
jeweler’s shop. 

It was such a handsome shop tbatl need bardly apologize for tak- 
ing tbe most exclusively high-bred reader into it. All round, from 
tbe floor to the lofty ceiling, there was a glitter of pretty things, 
gold and silver, gilding, glass and polished mahogany ; and all these 
things were reflected from such a number of cunningh^-inserted 
mirrors that a sense of bewilderment was apt to seize certain of Mr. 
Serlcote’s more countrified customers They remembered the time 
when the business was conducted in a place about a quarter the size, 
the door of which had stood at the top of four steps. This, how- 
ever, had been when Julian had been quite a little boy. Most of 
the improvements had been made since his return from Paris. 

There was no flaring of gas. The further end of the shop was 
almost in darkness, and it was a very subdued light that descended 
upon the heads of Martin Brooke and Ben Chadwick. Ben was the 
younger apprentice, a lazy, mischievous, incomprehensible youth, 
who seemed to have been sent into the world for no other purpose 
than the inscrutable one of making Joshua Serlcote ceaselessly, un- 
reasonably, and causelessly angry. If Ben spoke, or rather mut- 
tered, his muttering was an offense; silence was an offense still 
greater, and his smile was simply unpardonable. Joshua had been 
known more than once to turn red with anger because Ben blushed. 
Ben was not blushing for nothing. Some sense of hidden guilt was 
at the bottom of such impudence and shamefacedness as that. 

Martin and Ben stood there, one on either side, quite silently. It 
was supposed that Ben was rubbing something with wash-leather; 
Martin was for once making no pretense of doing anything. His 
uncle and Julian had disappeared when the tea-table bell rang at five 
o’clock, agreeing as they went into the house that they would go up 
as far as the station together to meet the seven o’clock train. It 
would suit Julian’s convenience to do so. The station w^as on the 
road to Buxton Grove, wffiere he had an engagement for the even- 
ing. 

There w^as no sound anywhere, within or without, wffien suddenly 
the rattle of wheels broke the silence. This was unusual in the 
Corn Market, especially after dark, sd unusual that Martin felt a 
curious suggestion of palpitation, and even Ben’s color changed to 
a dark crimson as he looked up. Nearer the sound came, and yet 
nearer, then it stopped, just outside. It was too late for a carriage 
customer. Martin flying forward decided hastily that the cabman 
w^as a fool for not knowing where the private entrance w^as. Hq 
looked rather desperate as he flung the shop door wide open, but he 
edged himself behind it very deferentially, not to say timidly. A 


A LOST SOK. 


7 


tall young lady in deep mourning entered, lifted a heavy black veil, 
and looked round with an appealing, bewildered looK that restored 
Martin’s presence of mind at once. 

“ Come this way,” he said. 

The words seemed brusque, but his tone was impressively gentle. 
Just as he spoke the glass door at the other end of the shop was 
opened. Martin led the way; the girl followed, shrinking, blushing 
more deeply at every step. Who were all these strange people? 
The}^ TV ere tiling in one by one, arranging themselves in a stiff awk- 
ward row. Old Joshua stood at the top in a broad black satin stock 
that seemed to keep his head as high as he could possibly wish it to 
be kept; his gray hair brushed out imposingly, his whole presence 
and bearing proclaiming his life-long sense of irreproachableness. 

Julian came next; Marlin had slipped a little behind; John and 
Ben Chadwick were staring at her from the corner of the desk. 
There were only five altogether, but they seemed like fifteen for a 
moment: and the moment was of quite indefinite length and in- 
tensity. 

So intense it was and so bewildering that when Julian stepped out 
with courteous presence from the little group she looked up to him 
in a timid graceful way that added a new element to his first feeling 
of surprise. 

There had been no time for thought, but “ quick as thouglit ” is 
not the best comparison that could be made; there are quicker men- 
tal processes than thinking. Julian himself could not have told how 
it was that he came to be so much surprised by that first sweet 
deprecating smile. But somehow he felt that a dark stately beauti- 
ful girl like this cousin of his might have met him coldly and proud- 
ly without upsetting his notions of feminine ways in the least. 

” J am sorry that there was no one at the station to meet you, but^ 
we thought you had intended to come by a later train,” he said,* 
speaking with a ceitain shy grace. 

Mr. ISerlcote said nearly the same thing without knowing it. The 
old man was rubbing his hands quite nervously, and there was a 
break in his voice that made Ben think he must be even angrier 
than usual. 

Then Julian and his father led the way into the house. There 
was only a narrow passage to cross. Elizabeth Serlcote, a fair blue- 
eyed young woman of thirty, with an amicable smile and an honest 
homely expression, was standing by the parlor door too uncertain to 
venture further. Behind her stood Fanny and Ellen, two bright- 
looking but much-subdued girls of sixteen and fourteen; small, 
w^hite-haired, pale-eyed Sam, aged ten, was still further in the back- 
ground. John, a boy of similar appearance but two years older, had 
remained in the shop with Ben Chadwick. 

Tea was still on the table. Mrs. Serlcote rose from her chair be- 
hind the teacups, and added her formal greeting to the rest. Julian 
had quite perception enough to feel that the atmosphere to which 
he was so much accustomed himself must strike this gentle-looking 
stranger with a sense of stiffness and coldness. It rather distressed 
him and incited him to efi;orts that his mother and sister noted with 
a little wonder. 

Presently Agnes went upstairs with Elizabeth, and Julian re- 


8 


A LOST sols’. 


mainecl in .tlie sitting-room until she reappeared. It was pleasant 
tor the younger ones to have him there. He was not one of them, 
he was above them and far away from them in other things than 
years, and these good but commonplace little things knew it; but 
they also knew that he was always kind to them, al^^aj^s had a smile 
and a playful word. His condescension was the one pleasant thing 
m their lives. Perhaps condescension is a hard word; certainly 
Julian’s brothers and sisters would not have used it. They loved 
him with that rare young love that believes in return without any 
question. 

He was, however, less vivacious than usual this evening. His 
agreeable surprise was working in his brain, awakening an amount 
of curiosity that was not likely to be soon satisfied. 

If he had tnought his cousin’s appearance striking and beautiful 
while she was still in her traveling- dress, it was not probable that 
he would have any reason for changing his opinion when she re- 
entered the room, divested of her heavy wraps and refreshed by 
change of toilet. He had seen grace before, he had worshiped 
beauty, he had been affected by transient glimpses of human good- 
ness, but he had never been touched as he knew that he was touched 
now. 

He could not have told you whether she had any special charm. 
He saw that her figure vas slight and graceful, that her dark, 
bright, undulating hair was coiled at the back of a small, well-shaped 
head, that the pale oval face was redeemed from colorlessness by 
crimson lips of fine curve and rich lustrous black eyes that were if 
anything a little too large, but he knew that the power that had 
arrested him lay in none of these things. 

Where did it lie? 

• He did not ask himself the question as he sauntered out through 
the kitchen to a large space behind the house that one would hardly 
know whether to call yard or garden. It was a curious place to find 
in the middle of a town like Lyme-St. -Mary’s and behind a shop. 
There was a high brick w^all with a stone coping all round it, but 
you could only see the bricks here and there between the luxuiiant 
masses of ivy, broad-leaved shining ivy that glittered in the light of 
the young moon that was well-nigh overhead. There were narrow 
flower borders all round, but in place of turf or gravel walks were 
damp green paving-stones. At one end an old fountain kept up a 
perpetual trickling over a few unhappy-looking ferns. 

You could hardly call it a pleasant place, unle.ss you happened to 
be in a very pleasant mood; but it was quaint and silent, and 
afforded a sense of breathing space that was very ref reshing to dwell- 
ers in a street. 

Julian walked up and down a few times. It could hardly be said 
that he was thinking— hardly even that he was feeling. Had his 
experience been less or bis ignorance more he might have fancied 
that he had fallen or w^as falling in love, but this idea did not occur 
to him. 

Julian Serlcote, weak, pleasure-loving, self-indulgent young man 
that he was, had yet capacity for being strangely attracted by what- 
soever of truth, purity or spiritual loveliness might come in his 


A LOST SO^T. 9 

way. His knees were not yet so stiffened into brass that worship 
was impossible. 

His devotion might be of the vaguest nature, but perhaps a little 
pity might be mingled with blame for this. He had never come into 
close contact with virtue much higher than his own. Whatever 
yearning after better things there might have been in liim had been 
allowed to lie dormant so'long that he had ceased to suspect its ex- 
istence. He had been stirred to-night, and he knew that he had, 
and he accepted the knowledge without impatience. 

The remembrance that he had promised to spend the evening with 
Whitehouse came upon him rather unpleasantly; he even felt his 
face, which was very fair and delicate, grow hot over the thought. 
For once he almost wished that he had not been quite so intimate 
with this cynical clever friend of his. Perhaps it w’ould be possible 
to withdraw a little. 

So he dreamed as he walked up and down over the mossy stones. 
It was a mild evening, the moonlight fell softly, the stars seemed to 
shine out of the past,^out of his younger and purer days. 

But. he was young yet, he reminded himself, barely tw^o-and- 
twenty ; and it he could never be innocent again — well, he need not 
stain his soul more deeply than it was stained already. 

He was thinking now to good purpose, and his thought presented 
a graphic Bible-picture, a picture of a man who was rich and a sin- 
ner, and who not only repented but made restitution, and this 
mainly because he was moved thereto by the sight of a Holy Face, 
by the sound of a Holy Voice; in a word, by the power of goodness 
to communicate itself. There had been no rebuke, not even re- 
monstrance; but indeed unlooked-for friendliness, unexpected kind- 
liness. 

This man Zacchceus had repented. Julian knew but very little of 
repentance. He was in the habit of going to church on a Sunday 
morning, his father’s wish being the main motive for the unchar- 
acteristic proceeding, but he knew that he was not much the better 
nor much the wiser for going there. He very seldom listened to 
the sermon, or even pretended to listen. How tor one moment, 
though he hardly knevv it, there was thirst in his soul, a desire to 
begin life afresh on new and higher terms. 

nevertheless he must keep his engagement at Whitehouse* s hand- 
some villa in Buxton Grove. Before he went, he returned to the 
sitting-room to say “ good-night.” He should not be. late, he said; 
it was his usual phrase on going out, and for once he meant il. 

He lingered about in a curious way before going. Agnes was rest- 
ing in an old crimson -covered easy-chair. Her pale sweet face, her 
dark bright hair and eyes, seemed to strike him as something more 
vividly new and fresh every time he looked at them. He wished 
she would talk more. Hitherto she had only answered when* any 
one spoke, but her answers were made in such alow, pleasant voice, 
and with such a winning smile on her lips and in her eyes, that he 
could not help waiting about in the hope of extracting from her 
more than response. But perhaps she was tired; or it might be that 
her grief was too new and strong for ordinary conversation. 

His walk that evening was a pleasant one. He recalled things 
that he had hardly seemed to note at the time. Until he found him- 


10 


A LOST SON. 


self no longer alone he had no thought save thought of his new 
cousin. 


CHAPTER II. 

“the wild kose blossoms fair.” 

Love took up the glass of time and turned it in his glowing hands, 

Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. 

Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might; 

Smote the chord of Self, that trembling passed in music out of sight. 

Locksley Hall. 

And what of this cousin heiself ? In all this stir of change and 
new impression, w^as she quite unstirred? Was she really as calm 
and placid as her smile seemed to betoken? Was the soul within 
her as unmoved as she herself appeared to be? 

We all know the story of Elaine! we have most of us been struck 
into a certain sadness of mood by its pure simple truthfulness. The 
noble knight had not yet stepped with all grace into that rude 
hall, when the guileless maiden, without one thought of sin, or sor- 
row, or shame, 

“ Lifted up her eyes 

And loved him with that love which was her doom.” 

Read how we will, no thought of improbability strikes us here. 
The maiden was all unused to love and ways of love. The strange 
knight, with his mellow voice, his courtly ways, his touch of mel- 
ancholy, might well seem to her the goodliest man that “ ever among 
ladies ate in hall,” and noblest; and, seeing this, it was small 
wonder that all night long his face should live before her, and that 
when the morning dawned her heart’s secret sTiould blaze itself in 
the heart’s colors on her simple face. No sense of suddenness jars 
upon us as we read; none of unmaidenliness. 

Nor is it probable that any such sense jarred upon the maiden her- 
self. Certainly this Elaine of ours felt none, neither had she any 
sorrow or fear or dismay of any kind. Her only feeling w^as a 
nameless and indefinite one of joy. Some good thing had happened 
to her. When she sat alone in her own room at night she sat won- 
deringly, but altogether peacefully: even her great sorrow for the 
dead was subdued and quiet within her. Her grief had never— save 
for one day, the day of the funeial — been of a wild and uncontrolla- 
ble nature. The cross of bereavement was heavy. She was but a 
girl — hardly yet nineteen — inexperienced, and almost alone in the 
world, tor the far-off uncle and cousins were only names to her 
then, and the sense of helplessness and forlornness strikes very chill 
to a heart like hers. 

The fact that her mother had died was not in itself a bitter one. 
Mrs. Dyne had been very tired, and not sorry when time for rest 
had come. Death had no sting for the one that was taken, nor any 
terror for the one that w^as left. The pain of separation was deep 
and ceaseless, and it had seemed to Agnes that it never could be 
any other until that day when there shall be no more pain. But al- 
though she had shed tears secretly and sadly, they had not been un- 
submissive tears. 


A LOST SOK. 


11 


Before coming to Ly me- 8t. -Mary’s she had done what she could 
to nerve herself for the first tew days of strangeness and dependence 
— for she was altogether dependent on the bounty of Joshua Serl- 
cote. Some thought she had that, if no woik were found for her to 
do in her uncle’s house, work might be found elsewhere — perhaps in 
a school. IShe could not be idle, and she had never had proof 

“ How savoreth of salt 
The bread of others, and how hard a road 
The going down and up another’s stair.”* 

Now already change had passed “ over the spirit of her dream,” the 
grand change that comes but once into any life. The thought of 
leaving her uncle's house came to her like a sudden pain, and she 
made haste to put it away from her. There was no more any feel- 
ing of strangeness. The days came and went, each one bringing 
some touch of hope or joy or promise, each one moving her to a new 
and glad surprise that life should be so rich, so beautiful, and yet so 
calm and quiet. Ah! she would never again dread any change, or 
any coming event that might throw shadows before. She would re- 
member the tears she had shed in the railway carriage as she came 
to Lyme-St. -Mary’s; she would never forget how the shower had 
come before the sunshine. 

There is something that it is no misuse of language to call sacred 
about the birth of true, pure love in the heart of any good man or 
woman. No levity of thought or word is possible. Such, coming 
from anothei person, strikes with a painful jar. 

This jarring element was perceptible not seldom during the first 
few weeks of Agnes Dyne’s life at the house in the Corn Market. 
When or how she had betrayed her secret she did not know, but it 
was a secret no longer. The ways of the people about her were not 
as her ways, nnr as the ways of her mother had been. Agnes could 
hardly doubt that Julian’s love had grown at least as rapidly as her 
own. There was reason why doubt was not possible, but he had not 
yet spoken openly, nor was she anxious that he should. She was 
already happy — quietly happy in this sense of a new and warm 
afitection; but that others should see it and jest over it before it was 
securely hers seemed strange and cruel. 

Perhaps there was a not altogether unsatisfactory side to the mat- 
ter. No one disapproved; rather it seemed that they were inclined 
to approve too prematurely. Elizabeth could hardly remember the 
time when hex father had been in such good temper and spirits; 
and 31artin Brooke, who was quite aware how matters were tending, 
had much ado to repress himself when Ben Chadwick winked to 
him knowingly from behind the opposite counter. But let Ben be 
forgiven; it was almost his only mode of adequate expression; and 
it must be conceded that there was much to be expressed in those 
days. There w’as the singular and not-to-be-defined improvement in 
Julian Serlcote himself; there w^as the presence of the beautiful 
stranger, who made such a diflierence in the house, and whose 
smile and kind word Ben would have run a mile to win any day; 
and more than all this, there was the change in old Joshua. It cer- 


* Dante. 


12 


A LOST SON. 


tainly was amusing 1o see the tall, thin, upright old man, walking 
up and down his shop with that military gait of his, rubbing his 
hands approvingly, smiling to himself, uttering half words and 
ejaculations of satisfaction, then overhearing his own voice and 
turning to speak sharply to Ben as a natural consequence. 

Perhaps no one understood it all better than Martin Brooke. Mar- 
tin had lately acquired a habit of looking out into the market-place, 
with a more than usually sad look in those blue-gray eyes of his. 

Looking out one December morning not much more than a month 
after Agnes’ arrival, he saw two tall figures cross the street. The 
taller one was Julian, looking, Martin thought, more like a prince 
than a shopkeeper. He certainly was a fine-looking man, and had an 
air about him that was considered quite one of distinction by the 
inhabitants of Lyme-St. -Mary’s. 

Julian Serlcote never passed along the streets unnoticed. His 
straight well-built figure, perhaps somewhat straighter since he had 
become a captain of volunteers, would have commanded attention 
anywhere. He was very fair, with a smooth delicacy of complex- 
ion that might have given him a girlish look but for his abundant 
whiskers and soft yellow mustache. He had gray eyes, mild affec- 
tionate gray eyes, that 

“ Seemed to love whate’er they looked upon.” 

Ho one was ever known to wonder at his popularity. 

Of course Martin did not wonder, nor did he even envy him; that 
feeling was kept back, not so much by the high hand he held over 
himself, as by the love he had for his cousin, the pride he felt in 
him. 

Yet it must be owned that something shook him as Julian and 
Agnes passed by together on this particular morning. He did not 
know what it was, "he never knew. They were not talking, hardly 
looking at each other, but there was something in the face of each 
that drove Martin away from the shop window, finally from the 
shop altogether. 

That day a battle was fought under Joshua Serlcote’s roof, one 
that Joshua never dreamed of. There might be no victory to speak 
of, but there was a hard struggle for it. 

Julian and Agnes going out for the first walk they had taken 
alone, had no thought of any suffering young man behind the coun- 
ter of the shop in the Corn Market; each was stirred with a multi- 
tude of thoughts, but Martin had no share in them. 

It w’as a bright morning for December, sunny, still, and almost 
warm. It was nearly Christmas now. The shops were gayly deco- 
rated, there were more people than usual in the streets ana lanes, 
people with brighter faces and more intent ways than were generally 
observable in the neighborhood of Lyme- St. -Mary’s. It was a pleas- 
ant day to be out if even there had been nothing special to make it 
pleasant. 

Probably Julian Serlcote had no very particular intentions when 
he asKed his cousin to take a walk with him that morning. She had 
come down to breakfast looking even brighter and prettier than 
usual; and a sudden thought had crossed his mind that it would be 
very satisfactory to be seen walking by her side in the Grove Road. 


A LOST SOX. 


13 


That was the fashionable promenade, and Julian knew that, 
though there might not be many there 1o envy him his companion, 
there would certainly be a few to envy Agnes hers. He was not be- 
hiud any man ot his years in capacity for estimating his own value 
as a desirable parti. 

He had given the invitation rather lightly, but he saw with some 
pleasure that it was not so lightly accepted. 

He noted Agnes* blush and shy grace of manner with a certain 
feeling of self-congratulation. Mrs. Serlcote was watching them 
both. 

“ It seems to me that you are two, very sly young people,** she 
said, prefacing her remark with a silly broken laugh. “But don’t 
think that 1 can’t see what’s going on,” she continued, shaking her 
head with a feigned disapproval meant to be highly humorous. 

Agnes looked up, only half comprehending, but blushing far 
more deeplj^ than before. Would she ever learn to understand this 
aunt ot hers? Julian colored with annoyance, but he made no re- 
ply. Experience had taught him the wisdom of accepting much of 
his mother’s unvvisdom in utter silence. 

Still the remark helped to strengthen the consciousness that al- 
ready existed in those two minds. Julian was sorry tor Agnes, and 
his sorrow expressed itself in a new tenderness of tone and manner. 
It was strange how every unimportant little thing that had hap- 
pened had helped to draw them together. Julian was halt surprised 
when he found himself caring so much tor his cousin’s opinion, 
thinking of her comfort, her wishes, her happiness, her peace of 
mind. This was altogether a difierent matter from flirting with that 
brilliant young person, Arminelle Oakley. “Flirting?” He was 
quite sure that w'as the right word. The matter had gone no further 
than that, and it should never go so far again. 

Nevertheless, it could hardly be said that he was very sorry to 
see the Miss Oakleys approaching. He had always thought them 
fine women. They were large, highly-colored, richly-dressed, and 
of the haughtiest bearing. Julian’s vanity had been flattered by his 
intimacy with them, but somehow he did not feel so proud of them 
this morning. He caught the curious glance of one, the disdainful 
smile of the other, and he passed on merely raising his hat. He 
could not introduce his cousin. He felt more strongly than ever her 
real superiority to these and other women ot his acquaintance. 

The wavering state of mind in which he had been since the first 
evening of Agnes’ arrival had not been very distasteful to him. He 
had not been slow to perceive that she was moved by some- 
thing more than mere gratitude for his various little kindnesses, and 
it pleased him to think that whenever he should cease to waver 
himself, he was not likely to he subjected to any further uncertainty. 
On the whole, though he acknowledged to himself now that he was 
very much in love, he was rather afraid that the one grand event of 
his life’s history was going to unfold itself rather tamely. If only 
Agnes had been a little less natural and simple-minded, a little more 
arch and diplomatic, or if even his father had not been so openly 
satisfied, it is probable that Julian would have been more in earnest. 
Of course he did not acknowledge all this to himself, and on two or 


14 


A LOST SOK. 


three recent occasions he had felt a ceriain amount of blissful impa- 
tience to have what he termed his “ fate ” settled. 

At other times he had had misgivings, and serious ones. A jest 
tainted with irreverence, a grave sin spoken of lightly, an unkind or 
uncharitable criticism, would bring a look of sadness to Agnes* face 
that made Julian in his ordinary mood look somewhat dubiously 
toward a future passed entirely by her side. He would have to give 
up somelliing — doubtless more than he liked to acknowledge even 
now ; but, all the same, it would be a very appalling thing tor a man 
of his temperament to be bound to a wife whose views might be- 
come more ascetic as the years went on. He was not quite clear as 
to what he meant by “ asceticism,’* but he was pleased with the 
word. 

Thus it will be seen that the young man, like most other human 
beings, had two selves. That first sight of Agnes’ face had awak- 
ened his higher and better self as it had not been awakened for 
years, but it had been as the lighting of a lamp that could not burn 
steadily for want of oil. Now it shot up brightly, now it died down 
—vanished almost out of sight. 

Still, he had decided pretty firmly in his own mind that he should 
ask Agnes to be his wife on some not very far distant day; but he 
had a vague notion fioating in his head that he should like the mat- 
ter to be brought to a crisis by some event or other that should re* 
lieve his soul of the sense of tameness. Various thin schemes oc- 
curred to him; he would go away, and find out from that stolid but 
loving elder sister of his how Agnes bore his absence; or he would 
take the first opportunity of flirting with some one else in her pres- 
ence, and then confess the purpose that his wickedness had had 
in it. 

But he did none of these things; instead, he walked by the side 
of a broad, still river, with low banks and gliding barges, and tow- 
ing-paths all along its margin from one town to another. There was 
a long low line of distant hills, blue and hazy, the smoke ot a far-oft 
town floated beyond the b: own-gray woods. On the opposite side of 
the river miles of flat green pasture-land stretched away into the dis- 
tance, dotted with village spires and groups of trees. Everywhere 
the mild, warm sun was shining, lighting up the river, throwing 
picturesque gray shadows. It was the dreamiest and pleasantest of 
winter days. 

“ Did you think it strange my asking you to come out for a walk 
this morning?” Julian asked, after a time of silence. 

His tone was tender. 

Agnes, looking up, met his eyes, and they were full of tender 
meaning also. 

” 1 thought it was very kind,” she said, softly. ‘‘I am so glad 
to be out of doors, away from the town.** 

” Did you walk much when you were at home?” 

” Aes, every day; mother used to insist on it.” 

Julian heard the slight change of tone, noted the touch of sadness. 

” Then 1 shall insist,” he said, speaking with a half playful au- 
thor! lativeness. 

A soft pink blush suffused Agnes’ face, her large dark eyes 
drooped sadly. Julian did not see that they were full of tears, he 


A LOST SOX. 15 

only saw that the smile on her lips was a little sad, and that she was 
struggling with embarrassment. 

“You mustn’t think that no one cares for you/’ he went on, 
drawing a little closer to her, and speaking in lower accents than be- 
fore. “ 1 know what it is to be a stranger in a strange land. There 
is nothing 1 would not do to save you from such suffering as I have 
known myself.” 

Agnes looked up astonished, ready to smile with surprise. Julian 
suffering! Then the thought came; “ But how else could he have 
learned such sympathy— such precious sympathy as this that was 
making her heart beat now?” 

“ But 1 don’t feel that 1 am uncared for,” she said. ** You have 
been so kind — you and my uncle and all of you. Have 1 seemed 
indifferent or ungratefiil?” 

“ No, certainly not; but 1 was not meaning that kind of caring — 
that general affection that you could not help winning wherever you 
went.” 

What then was he meaning? Was it coming true, that wild sweet 
dream — her first dream— her last? Beautiful she had always been, 
but she stood like one transfigured to a new and higher beauty now. 
They had sauntered on to where the river rippled through the arches 
of the old gray bridge at Elmthorpe. Julian took her hand in his 
as they stood by the parapet. She did not withdraw it, nor turn 
away her face. The moment was too solemn for the littleness of 
coquetry, even had the skill to practice it been hers. 

No. “ He had not dreamed she was so beautiful,” and to see her 
standing there “rapt on his face,” as if he were some noble 
being, worthy not only of her love, but of her reverence and devo- 
tion, caused him a moment of vague, undefined pain. Neither knew 
how long the silence had lasted when it was broken. 

“ I was not thinking of that kind of affection,” Julian said; “ it 
can never content you— it can never content me again. 1 feel now 
how true it is that 

“ ‘ The love of all 

Is but a small thing to the love of one.’ ” 

Then he stopped a moment, the sudden strengthening of his own 
emotion compelling him. 

“ If I could have the love of the whole world, Agnes, it would be 
nothing to me if 1 could not have yours.” 

Her only answer was the word that was pressing on his own heart 
for utterance. It was spoken with effort and after a long pause, 

“lam not worthy to be loved yith such a love as this,” she 
said. 

******* 

So passed one of the great crises of Julian Serlcote’s history — per- 
haps the greatest of all. For many days after that day by the River 
Trent he could hardly realize his own exceeding great happiness. 
Pleasures and joys of a certain stamp had been his before, and he 
had usually looked upon himself as a very deserving recipient of 
anything of that kind that might come in his way. Troubles, or 
rather annoyances, had been apt to move him to a certain surprise. 

Now his first instinct was to walk a little carefully. There was 
even reverence enough in him to be afraid of the intoxication that 


16 


A LOST SOK. 


threatened to supervene. Congratulations were poured in upon him 
from all sides, sincere and inslnceie, the latter the loudest. 

Perhaps none ot them touched him so much as his father’s satis-- 
f action, which he did not qiiile understand until more than a week 
had passed away; then late one evening — New Year’s Eve it was — 
after they had been sitting alone for a time, discussing the future — Ju- 
lian’s future, and Agnes’ — the old man suddenly put down the long 
clay pipe, which was his sole form of self-indulgence, and turning 
his head away, Julian saw with distress that tears were dropping 
slowly over his father’s face. 

The son was not by nature much more demonstrative than the fa- 
ther, yet tenderness of heart was not wanting in either. Julian put 
his cigar aside instantly, and involuntarily laid one hand softly on 
the old man’s shouldei. 

“For pity’s sake, don’t let these things trouble you!” he said, 
with much emotion. “There is no need even to think of any 
change for a while. We can wait, we wish to wait, and when the 
change does come it need not make much diflerence to you. You 
will always te master here.” 

“ No, no, my boy, it is not that,” Joshua said, with some diffl- 
culty, “ it is not that. 1 should like to go. 1 should like to live a 
little way in the country, to end my days among green fields; I have 
always thought 1 shouid like that. No, it is other things that over- 
come me.” 

“ Then try not to think ot them, father.” 

“ I can’t help it, Julian; 1 can’t help it. 1 am getting old, and 
the past is more to an old man than the present or the future. There 
are things in the past that pain me, that 1 thought would pain me on 
to the end, but if you marry Agnes and behave kindly to her 1 
think they will not trouble me so much. 1 loved her mother more 
than she knew, but because she wouldn’t do as I wished her to do 
1 steeled myself against her, hardened my own heart, so long that 
when 1 wanted to relent 1 couldn’t. Even when her husband died, 
and 1 knew that she was suffering poverty as well as grief, 1 could 
not bend my pride to help her, except secretly. She never knew 
that I helped her, that 1 should have been glad if a reconciliation 
could have been forced upon me. But all that is gone, Julian. Tou 
can help to atone for your father’s sin.” 

“it will be a very pleasant way of making atonement,” said Ju- 
lian, smiling; ” and as to my behaving kindly to Agnes, J think it 
would be impossible for any one to behave unkindly to her. 1 look 
upon her coming here as the luckiest thing that has happened in 
my life yet.” 

“1 trust it will prove so, Julian,” the old man said, rather anx- 
iously, certain uneasy memories troubling him somewhat. “ L trust 
it will prove so. It should make you a little steadier; don’t you 
think so, my boy?” 

Julian’s face colored a little. For a moment he half resented the 
idea that improvement was possible in him, but only for a moment. 
His better self was in the ascendant. 

“ Father, 1 am trying to turn over a new leaf,” he said. That 
was all, but there was a certain boyish quiver in his voice that 
seemed to preclude further conversation. 


A' LOST SON. 


17 


lears afterward Julian Serlcote lemembered that New Year’s Eve 
his father’s fire, the parting shake of the hand, and the blessing 
that had never seemed to bless him. 


CHAPTER 111. 

THE TOUCH OF CHANGE. 

I foresee, and I could foretell 
Thy future portion sure and well, 

But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true. 

And let them say what thou shalt do. 

Robert Browning. 

That sweet spring time was a very happy time at the jeweler’s 
shop in the Corn Market. If anybody about the place refused to be 
happy it was only Martin, and no one knew anything about his re- 
fusal. Agnes thought him very silent, very stern at times; if even 
he did any little kindness for her — and he never lost an opportunity 
of doing one— his manner of doing it was often quite inexplicable.’ 
If he placed a chair or opened a door he would compress his lips 
and knit his brows most ferociously, while she thanked him, looking 
into his face with one of her sweet smiles. Mardn generally walked 
off swinging his arms defiantly, or, if his temper was worse than 
usual, humming to himself some sir or other, but producing a most 
dreadful timeless and tuneless noise. No one could say that the 
young man’s behavior was good. 

Still he did his work faithfully, his own and greater part of Ju- 
lian’s besides. Julian did not find it easy to turn over that new leaf 
of which he had spoken, and it was not to be expected of him that 
he should persist in doing anything that was difficult or distasteful. 
This was the grand noon of his life ; why should he ' shadow it by 
vexing his own soul needlessly : 

Therefore he still went on his way 'much as he had done before, 
and a most social and buoyant way it was. He had hardly appre- 
ciated it properly until he had made some feeble struggles against 
the temptations it held, temptations of which they isnew nothing in 
that “ slow ” old-fashioned home of his. 

Nothing was known of him there that could be openly objected 
to. It might be that in more than one heart there was a vague feel- 
ing of anxiety about him, but this could only be in his absence. 
'When he was present he seemed to bring love with him and admira- 
tion and satisfaction. 

If any charge could be brought against him substantial enough 
to be put into words it was ^he charge of idleness; but even Agnes 
wondered at her own temerity in making it. 

Julian smiled his pleasantest, easiest smile. 

“ 'Well, I'm afraid you’re about right there,” he said, speaking as 
it he was rather complimented than otherwise. ” 1 begin to think 
that 1 am naturally lazy. I’m certainly getting to hate work more 
than 1 used to do.” 

Agnes looked grave and turned paler than usual as he spoke. 
Work of some kind was a condition of life to her, and a sacred con- 
dition. Since Christmas she had undertaken the education of 


18 


A LOST SON. 


Fanny and Ellen, and it was a greater undertaking than anybody 
about her knew. Mr Serlcote was grateful to her; she had not liked 
the school the children had attended before, but she had no real idea 
of the work which was being done in her best parlor during these 
sunny forenoons. Tet the feeling that something was being done 
for her and her children helped a good deal to sweeten her sour thin 
nature. She had accepted the idea of A.gnes as her Julian’s future 
wife, because her Julian had so decreed, but not without a whisper 
of disappointment to her eldest daughter. 

“Moving in such society as he does, 1 think he might have 
looked a little higher,'’ she said. 

But Elizabeth, who was short and square and in no wise beauti- 
ful, looked upon her tall, beautiful, graceful cousin as quite 
enough of a princess even for her princely brother. And under- 
lying this admiration there was a firmly-giowing affection. Eliza- 
beth was by nature a motherly woman, Agnes b}’- nature and cir- 
cumstances one who could appreciate to the full a motherly friend. 

As the days went on there came to be a certain reticence be- 
' tween them about Julian, an unacknowledged, because almost 
groundless, reticence. There was no doubt of his love. Seeing that 
Agnes was so securely his, it was not to be expected of him that be 
should desire to be assured of that fact at least sixteen times a day, 
as had been the case in the beginning of their engagement. 

Their affection tor each other was a quiet certainty now,, not a 
thing to need demonstration. 

If Agnes was a little surprised that this state of things came to 
pass so soon, her surprise must be forgiven to her. She was young, 
over-earnest in all that she did or felt, and utterly inexperienced. 
Besides, be it noted that she kept such surprise altogether to herself. 
Once reading “ Dora ’’ to herself one evening when Julian was out, 
she paused awhile as she read of how William had failed to love 
his cousin — 

Because 

He had been always with her in the house.” 

Was it, then, possible that people could see too much of each 
other? The idea remained with her, weighed upon her, finally 
wrought into her mind, so that she kept out of Julian’s way some- 
what more than she had done. This was the one artifice that she 
used, and it was quite harmless. Julian never discovered that she 
had made any change. 


CHAPTER IV. 

MRS. TALBOT. 

And oh! how much I loved him, what can tell? 

Not words, nor tears. Heaven only knows how much; 

And every evening when I say my prayers, 

I pray to be forgiven for the sin 
Of loving aught on earth with such a love. 

Sir Henry Taylor; Philip Van Artevelde. 

“ And because they had no root they withered away.’’ 

That was Dr. Deane’s text one summer Sunda}’’ morning. Joshua 
Serlcote-’s pew was far away up in the west gallery, close to the 


A LOST SOK. 


19 


origan and the choir. The root was just overhead, the old oak 
rafters seeming to shut out light and air and sun— everything, in 
tact, but dust and dirt. A dingier, more unwholesome, more dis- 
tracting place wherein to pray and praise could never have been con- 
ceived. Yet the old square pew was almost always lull. Joshua 
and his wife sat by preference with their backs to the pulpit, which 
was somewhere in the dim east, and had a large, dusky-looking 
stained-glass window behind it; the four younger children sat in a 
prim row opposite. Elizabeth and Martin had latterly occupied the 
seat by the door, so that Julian and Agnes might sit near each other 
at the opposite end. 

But this morning Agnes was sitting there alone, and it was not 
the first time that this had happened. Julian had been subject to 
headaches, and he could trace them to other causes than “sitting 
tor so many hours on a Sunday in that stulfy old organ-lott.’’ Agnes 
had offered to sit with him elsewhere, but her offer had somehow 
or another been evaded. Was it his absence only that made her 
look so sad? Was it fanc}^ that made old Joshua’s lace seem more 
stern and grave than usual? 

“Because they had no root they withered away.” The words 
seemed to ring through the aisles like a denunciation. Over and 
over they came in the sermon as a conclusion to solemn warnings, 
to affectionate entreaties, to passionate appeals. Joshua Serlcote 
stirred in his seat unersily; Agnes sat hushed, almost breathless. 
It was sad work, sadder tor certain shortcomings of her own. 

“ Withering away.” Y^es, we see the process going on on every 
side of us — souls withering under the deadly chills of indifference, 
perishing under the deadlier blight of sin— and we make no effort, 
or only the most miserable effort, enough to satisfy our own most 
miserable conscience. 

It seemed to Agnes possible to make any, the most desperate, effort 
as she sat there: but when the moment came for conscious exertion 
there were both pain and difficult}^ in it. 

Julian seemed to be more unlike himself than ever that Sunday 
afternoon. He had taken even more pains than usual with his ap- 
pearance; there was a certain air of extra neatness and trimness a bout 
him. This was for her sake, Agnes did not doubt. Of course he 
would ask her, as he always did, if she were not ready for the long 
pleasant walk that had grown into a pleasant custom. 

But he did not ask her; he sat in the drawing-room with a book 
in his hand which she could see that he was not reading; and there 
was something in his face and in his attitude that made her heart 
beat quicker than it should have done as she went up to him. 

She took out her watch and held it playfully before his eyes. 
Julian looked at it stolidly; not a muscle of his white, handsome, 
clear-cut lace moved as he uttered the monosyllable 

“ Well?” 

“ Do you see the time?” 

“ 1 hope so.” 

“ Do you know why I wish j^ou to see it?” 

An uneasy little frown passed momentarily over his face. He 
had his own plan for spending the afternoon, and he had not ex- 


20 


A LOST SOK. 


pectecl any difflcully of: this kind. But he was not a man to trouble 
himselt uneasily. 

“ 1 can’t say what special reason you may have/’ he replied, 
speaking in the same impassive tone as before. 

“ Then 1 must tell you,” Agnes said, still smiling, and speaking 
with a certain half playful sweetness. “ I want you to take me to 
Elmthorpe this afternoon to the church. The service is at three 
o’clock.” 

Julian colored and hesitated. His voice was smoother and more 
courteous when he spoke again. 

“lam afraid you will have to wait till another Sunday, Agnes, 
clear,” he said. “ I’m awfully sorry, but the fact is 1 have an en- 
gagement.” 

“ An engagement for to-day?” 

“ Yes, you little Puritan. 1 hope I shall live to see you holding 
a regular leme every Sunday afternoon.” 

He was speaking flippantly now, almost defiantly. Agnes’ 
thoughts were turning back upon the words that had so stirred her 
in the morning. 

She sat down on a stool almost at Julian’s feet, clasping her hands 
lightly on her black dress, looking up into his face wUh a smile 
that might have touched him had he been in a less unapproachable 
mood. 

“ J ulian,” she said, “ you know you do not think me a Puritan; 
you have even said that you wondered to find me so little Puritanical. 
And 1 know there are engagements and engagements — some that 
one might keep on a Sunday without fear of wrong-doing. Would 
you mind telling me where you are going to-day? If you think that 
1 ought not to have asked you, say so, and 1 won’t press you for an 
answer.” 

^'\do think you ought not to have asked me, but I don’t mind 
answering you in the very least. 1 am going to Mrs. Talbot’s; she 
is ‘ at home ’ this afternoon, i promised her 1 would look in.” 

Agnes was silent; there was much to be thought about. Julian 
had introduced her to Mrs. and Miss Talbot— a widowed lady and 
her daughter, who had lately come to live in Buxton Grove, and 
Mrs. Talbot had shown herself gentle and friendly, but Agnes was 
not quite sure that there could ever be much sympathy" between 
them. The feeling— or rather the instinct — that she had in the 
matter was very vague, very intangible, but Julian had perceived 
it, and made it tangible at once. 

Helena Talbot was still a handsome and attractive woman; her 
daughter Lerna, aged seventeen, promised to be quite as handsome; 
therefore it was not wonderful that Agnes should fail to look kindly 
upon them as his friends. 

So it was that Julian said, not without some satisfaction, “ 1 am 
going to Mrs. Talbot’s; she is ‘ at home ’ to-day.” 

The idea of a reception of this kind on a Sunday was as new to 
Agnes as it was to the inhabitants of Lyme-St.-Slary’s generally. 
Julian had a notion that she would be “ rather shocked,” as he put 
it to himselt. She was certainly saddened. 

“ 1 know very little about things of this kimd,” she said, “ nor 
how far people may be prepared to defend them, but 1 think it is a 


A LOST SOis^ 21 

pity that a Christian should do anything to need defense from such 
a standpoint as that.” 

Julian smiled superciliously. ” Oh, I don’t expect you to approve 
of anything Mrs. Talbot may do; her notions and yours will never 
fit. She is the least narrow-minded of any woman I have known.” 

” 1 was not thinking of Mrs. Taibot, Julian; 1 was thinking of 
you. There is only one Sunday in the week — only one day wherein 
to feel a little safer from distraction— a little more separate from the 
world, so that one’s heart 

“ ‘ May deeply take and strongly keep 
The print of heaven.’ ” 

” You are a dear, good little creature,” Julian said, rising from 
his chair with an ill-suppresed yawn. ” 1 wish 1 were half as good 
as you: and if j^ou don’t worry me, perhaps I may take you to Elm- 
thorpe Church next Sunday.” 

Then he went out, less satisfied with himself than he seemed to 
be — in fact, hardly satisfied at all. It was in hi^ mind once, as he 
went up the quiet, deserted-looking Corn Market, to go back, to lay 
before that future wife of his certain struggles that he had had, 
certain misgivings that beset him, certain miserable gnawings of 
conscience, but he kept on his way until the desire had left him. 

Yet, believe the best of him; he half hated himself for the mood 
that he had been in during the past hour, though it had been more 
a feigned mood than a real one; and he acknowledged to himself in 
all sincerity that he was growing even less worthy of his cousin and 
her love than he had been before. 

If he had gone back he might have been moved even deeper still; 
he might have found Agnes Dyne on her knees and in tears; he, 
w^ho prayed so little for himself, might all the rest of his life have 
remembered hearing another pray so earnestly for him, 

“ But of all sad words of tongue or pen, 

The saddest are those— ‘ It might have been.’ ” 

Yes, believe the best of him, and pity him. He was weak, and 
he knew it; his temptations were strong, and he knew it not. 

How should he know? He had never in his life looked a tempta- 
tion in the face determined to resist it. 

Temptation!— if you could but look at that. A power of dark- 
ness, strong, subtle, unsleeping; leaving no point unassailed; 
harassing the watchfulest Christian most, succeeding best where he 
thought himself the strongest; harassing not at all the unwatchful, 
but making what havoc can be made in the strictest silence. 

You remember that pathetic line in Mrs. Browning’s ” Cry of the 
Children”? 

“ ‘ Our Father,’ we say softly for a charm.” 

It is probable that Julian Serlcote had said his charm over that 
morning; that the words ‘‘ Lead us not into temptation had passed 
through his mind with more or less recognition of meaning in them. 
That he had paused at all to think over the temptation the day might 
hold for him is less probable; if he had he miglit have turned back 
even at the gate ot .that newl}' furnished villa in the Grove. 


22 


A LOST SOK. 


Yet there was nothing in it specially baleful. Mrs. Talbot was 
the widow of a London physician, and the daughter of a man well 
remembered in Lyme-St.-Slary’s, an upright magistrate, a friend 
to the poor, and a neighborly man to his neighbors. Helena Talbot 
was not rich; nay, she confessed openly that she came back to “ the 
home of her childhood at least as much for the sake of economy 
as for the sake of sentiment. Yet she gave sentiment at least its 
weight, on this as on all other occasions. 

Julian thought she looked younger than ever this afternoon, and 
handsomer, though he did not fail to perceive that much of this 
impression might be owing to her unapproachable knowledge of 
effect. She wore no cap, her glossy plentiful back hair, which curled 
naturally, was relieved by a background of palest pink damask 
curtain; the light that was in the room was subdued, etherealized 
with the subtlest skill; all was harmony, repose, point lace, old 
china, and graciousness. 

Several of Julian’s friends were already there when he went in; 
among them were the Miss Oakleys and their brother, and Dr. 
Sargent, all of whom greeted him with a warmth that he would 
have been very sorry to miss. 

Mrs. Talbot was less fervid, but much more impressive. Julian 
was drawn in spite of himself to look closely again and again into 
those dark, meaningful eyes of hers. It was mere curiosity. What 
was it they expressed? He found himself wondering, guessing, 
longing to find out what message they were so softly and mys- 
teriously delivering. 

She had a strange power of attracting sympathy, though no one 
could say precisely why she needed any. She had friends, health, 
competence, and her “ darling Lerna;” still, most people spoke of 
her as poor Mrs. Talbot. 

Julian himself felt a certain something that wms not pity, and yet 
had the dangerous force of it, something that seemed to awaken an 
altogether new emotion within him. Friendship, doubtless, it was, 
he said to himself, speaking in utter ignorance of the meaning of 
that sacred word, a “ friend.*^ 

Even in this beginning of things he hardly approved of the fact 
that Mrs. Talbot had so many other friends, was so gracious and 
kind to all alike. Especially did he dislike her acceptance of Dr. 
Sargent’s florid courtesies. The doctor wms a widower, a short, 
stout, good-natured man, popular everywhere by sheer force of 
goud-nature. He had little else lo recommend him— until to day 
Julian had not known how little, but he was now enabled to decide 
without much dissatisfaction that the doctor w^as deficient in that 
nameless virtue that people call tact. People had come who w^ere 
very dubious about coming, and who were quite prepared to protest 
silently and politely against anything that should turn their dubious- 
ness into regret. Each had his own line drawn, and the hardest and 
fastest lines were drawn by those who had had to leap the highest 
stone walls in order to be present. 

Mrs. Talbot had quite perception enough to be aware of this ele- 
ment of watchful doubt, and was diplomatic enough to disarm it 
most sweetly. Perceiving that Dr. Sargent had drawn Julian, Mark 
Oakley, and some others into discussing the arrangements for a vol- 


A LOST SOK. 


23 


unteers’ ball, and that the discussion was being listened to with si- 
lent but sufficiently evident disapprobation, she asked for a little 
music.* 

“ Clarice dear, ” she said, turning to the younger Miss Oakley, with 
a certain gentle emphasis in her voice that made itself felt all 
throu.j?h the room — “ Clarice dear, would you be kind enough to 
sing us that touching little hymn, ‘ In sad misfortune’s saddest 
hour ’? 1 will play it for you on my new harmonium, which 1 have 
bought on purpose for Sunday use. And, Mr. Whitehouse, will 
you favor us by taking the tenor?” 

She spoke in such plaintive, measured tones, and suppressed a 
sigh so touchingly as she tinished speaking, that Mr. Whitehouse 
felt as it he would be glad to sing for her until he had no longer breath 
to sing. The whole order of things seemed changed as she swept 
with dignity across the room and laid her white hands softly upon 

the keys. . i 

The music was not good. Clarice Oakley’s voice was thin and 
uncertain; Edgar Whitehouse did not know his part. But no one 
seemed to mind; they were all listening to Mrs. Talbot, who was 
putting in a few contralto notes in tones that were almost startling 
in their impressiveness. Julian’s susceptible emotions were raised 
to a new platform without his knowing it; it was almost as it he 
Had never heard any one sing before. The time went on, and the 
music went on; some of the people went away, but it never oc- 
curred to Julian to do anything but wait until Mrs. Talbot should 


He seemed to waken up from a kind of dream to find himself the 
only visitor remaining. Mrs. Talbot was talking to him, explaining 
her Sunday evening arrangements, in tones of greatest confidence. 
Lerna was siting on a footstool staring at him with dreamy vacant 
eyes, caressing her mother’s soft white hand. The sun was coming 
in at the west window more directly than it had done before. 

May I trouble you to draw the blind down, Mr. Serlcote?” He- 
lena Talbot said, sighing again, and speaking beseechingly. 

Julian complied with a sense of irritation at the smallness of the 
trouble, and looked about listlessly to see if there was nothing more 
to be done. Then he glanced at the cl^ck and blushed slightly. 
Ought he not to go? He hesitated to sit down again, and Mrs. Tal- 
bot perceived his hesitation. 

“ Ton are not thinking of going!” she said, in a friendly way, 

1 was hoping you would stay to tea.” 

The invitation was not given too impressively: Julian had been 
wishing for it, but he was confused, strangely confused this after- 
noon. He uttered something that sounded like “ thanks,” but in a 
very undecided manner. 

‘‘Of course it will be very dull for you,” she said. “ We are 
not entertaining people. Lerna and 1 can sing for you a little, that 
is, if you care for singing.” 

” 1 care for singinsr more than for anything else in the world — that 
is, for your singing,” he said, with an abandon that startled him- 
self and made Mrs. Talbot smile in spite of the settled melancholy 
which forbade indiscriminate smiling. 

” Ah,” she replied, looking at him with more than ordinary sad- 


24 


A LOST SO]Sr. 


ness in her beautiful eyes. “ You should not say things like that 
to me now. My voice^^is gone; all is gone that made life worth liv- 
ing. What happiness rernains to me in the future can only come 
to me through the happiness of my darling Lerna. If you like sing- 
ing so much you shall hear her sing. To me it is like hearing the 
voice of my own j^oulh again.” 

Julian looked down at the pretty childish stupid-looking girl with 
a look on his face almost as vacant as her own. Lerna was no more 
to him than any other pretty thing among Mrs. Talbot’s surround- 
ings. The idea of her singing reminded him of the doll that he had 
brought from Paris for his little sister Nelly, a doll that said ” Mam- 
ma ” in a most uncanny fashion. 

Nevertheless he was constrained to admit that the girl had a voice 
—and a sweet, well-trained voice that blended with her mother’s 
very efiectively. It was not necessary, now that no narrow-minded 
person was present, to keep to that odious buzzing harmonium. Ju- 
lian and Mrs. Talbot had a little laugh over the idea of one instill- 
ment being more sacred than another; then they laughed again over 
the people who were supposed to hold such ideas. 

It was wonderful how well they agreed. Julian had never before 
met with any one who understood him so well, who presupposed 
his views so exactly, and who appraised his superiority with so 
much delicacy. 

Was there not something complimentary in the mere choice of 
the music she played and "sung? There was no need to keep to 
hymns and airs from oratorios now. French songs were sung that 
Julian understood and enjoyed, Italian duets that he did not under- 
stand but enjoyed still more, for Mrs. Talbot had to interpret them, 
and the interpretation required smiles and glances and other uncon- 
ventional and fascinating modes of expression, some of which were 
very intoxicating to a man so young, so impressionable, so utterly 
light-headed and light-hearted as Julian Serclote was. 

Very young he was and very happy that evening, with a new’ ahd 
transcendent happiness that he never tried to define. 

His emotion was too much of the nature of delirium for him to 
have any dread of consequences. He thought of Agnes somewhat 
uneasily as he walked home, but Agnes had gone to bed ; indeed, the 
whole family had gone save Martin. 

Julian would not have been sorry if Martin had been in bed also. 
What right had a stupid boy like that to give himself airs about 
nothing? Julian liked Martin, and altogether approved of Martin’s 
liking for him; but he did not like to nave his pleasant, open ad- 
vances met with silence and sullen ness because he had chosen to 
make a quiet visit on a Sunday evening. 

Agnes was far wiser, and she was a dear good girl after all, Juli- 
an said to himself, after receiving her smiling, tender greeting next 
morning. There was no rebuke there, tacit or other. Her face 
was cloudless, her eyes clear and calm. She had spoken of her 
trouble to Him who alone knew of it as she knew; and with Him 
she had left it for weal or further woe. 


A LOST SOis'. 


25 


CHAPTER Y. 

MUCH OF MADNESS AND MOKE OF SIN. 

For only then, when memory 
Is hushed, am I at rest. 

Wordsworth. 

It was not possible in a gossipy little town like Lyme- St- Mary’s 
that the wa;ys aud doings ot a young man so popular as Julian Seri- 
cote should escape observation. Hitherto the observation had al- 
ways been sympathetic and admiring. Even the one or two far- 
sighted people who shook their heads over certain things had not 
been heard to advance much in the way of uncharitable comment. 

Matters were changing a little now; his friends found themselves 
called upon to defend him and make excuses for him more fre- 
quently than they liked to own. Even Edgar AVhitehouse, who 
could put up with a certain amount of disapproval on his own ac- 
count, was sorry to feel the creeping depreciation of Julian Serlcote, 
sorry to know that the change was in no way groundless. 

He tried a feeble remonstrance once. It was pitiful work for him, 
but let him have due credit far attempting it. 

Quite late one autumn evening Julian and he had met accidental- 
ly at the top of the Corn Market. Whitehouse was going for a soli- 
tary stroll on the Elmthorpe Road; he had stopped for a moment 
to light a cigar when he saw a figure coming slowly down the steps 
of the Westminster Hotel just opposite. 

“ Is that you, Serlcote?” he asked, doubtfully. 

“Yes,” said Julian. “ Where are you going, old fellow?” 

“ Home with you.” 

“ No, you’re not. I’m not going home. Can’t stand the paternal 
back-parlor to-night.” 

“ What has happened?” 

“ Nothing — nothing unusual. 1 wish something would happen.” 

Edgar VVhitehouse hesitated, then said with an effort, 

“ Well, you will not have to wish long, 1 should say, if you go 
on as you have been doing lately.” 

Julian raised his head quickly, laughing a scornful laugh. 

“ That comes well from you,” he said, ironically. “ What’s that 
about the ‘ first stone ’?” 

“Don’t quote Scripture to-night,” Whitehouse said, rather 
gravely; “ and if you won’t go home, come for a turn with me.” 

Julian complied readily; any chance was better now than that ot 
having to face his father or Agnes alone. 

They walked on for a while in silence, or silence only broken by 
Julian trying to hum the first few bars of a French air which he had 
been listening to with rapture during the early part of the evening. 
The mere remembrance of it seemed to excite him, to make his own 
thought intolerable. 

“ Why can’t you say something, Whitehouse?” he began, with 
an impatience quite new to him. “ If you’re in a preaching mood. 


26 


A LOST SOJT. 


preach; but I’d rather 5^ou didn’t. It would be no use. I’m going 
down the broad road, and all the preaching in' the world won’t stop 
me.” 

Whitehouse put his arm within Julian’s, a movement of aftectiou 
that he could have show’n to no other human being in the world. 

“Don’t talk like that,” he said. “ I’m supposed to be pretty 
hardened for my years, but there are things that 1 can’t stand.” 

“And there are things that 7 can’t stand,” replied Julian ; “ things 
that 1 shall go mad with trying to stand.” 

“ What sort of things?” 

“ Don’t ask me; don’t try to get to know the worst of me. I’m. 
a scoundrel and a dastard; be content with knowing that.” 

“1 should like something more definite, ”*retuined Whitehouse, 
coolly. “ I’m a lawyer, remember.” 

“ Yes, 1 know you are, and acquainted with villainy of all kinds. 
Y'ou’ll be acquainted with mine some day. You will remember me 
as a man who robbed his own father, and broke the heart of the 
woman who was to have been his wife.” 

Edgar Whitehouse made no comment for a minute or tw^o. He 
perceived that Julian was excited, and that therefore his strong 
language might be to a certain extent figurative. 

“ 1 don’t think your cousin looked particularly broken-hearted 
when 1 saw her yesterday,” he said, after a time. 

“No,” replied Julian, “ she’s not one ‘ to wear her heart on her 
sleeve;’ besides, it hasn’t come to that yet.” 

“ Then why should it come to that?” 

“ That is a question you can answer tor yourself as well as 1 can 
answer it for you, perhaps better,” Julian replied, with a new ve- 
hemence of tone and manner. “Don’t pretend that you can’t see 
what’s going on. It is said that on-lookers see most of the game. 1 
should say it’s true in this case. 1 see nothing myself. 1 am blinded 
and bewildered.” 

“ And infatuated,” added Whitehouse. with a professional clinch. 

“ Anything you choose,” said Julian. “ Words will alter noth- 
ing.” 

“ Probably not; still there are certain things that would be better 
altered. Let me give you one piece of information that may be of 
use to you. 1 am sorry to drag Mrs. Talbot’s name into the discus- 
sion, but let me assure you that she has not the slightest intention 
of bestowing her fair hand on you.” 

“Nor have 1 ever had the slightest hope that she would do so.” 

“ Then why in the name of all that is sane are you acting so 
madly?” 

“ Because 1 am mad.” 

“ i believe you are; or at any rate madder than 1 thought you.” 

There was another pause; utter recklessness is a difidcult thing to 
deal with. 

“You said a while ago,” Whitehouse began again, “ that you 
were going doivn the broad road. 1 see no reason to doubt your 
word. You also said that nothing would stop you. A question 
arises out of that. Have you the smallest wish to be stopped?” 

It was Julian’s first impulse to say, “ 1 don’t know that 1 have,’* 


A LOST SOK'. 27 

bdt the words did not pass his lips. He remained silent for a while; 
then he said, sadly, “ I’m afraid it’s too late.” 

' ” That depends upon yourself altogether. It zs too late if you’re 
beyond making an effort.” 

” Effort! What effort can 1 make? 1 can’t turn round upon 
myself in the cool way you could do and call myself an idiot, and 
have done with it. No, let things turn as they will now, there’s 
nothing for me but misery.” 

“Again, 1 say that that depends upon yourself. ” said Whitehouse, 
still speaking calmly, but with more earnestness and emphasis than 
before. He was much older than Julian; he knew that he had in- 
fluence over him; sadder, he knew that his influence had not always 
been exercised for good. He had been touched with remorse before, 
but not to the extent of endeavoring to make reparation. 

“There is only one chance for you,” he went on, gravely. 
“ Leave the place for a while; that will change the current of things 
as nothing else can do. If you remain here and go on as you have 
been doing, 1 think you are quite right—there zs nothing but misery 
lor you.” 

“ But how can 1 go?” said Julian, with a certain amount of con- 
temptuous surprise that his clever friend should offer such impracti- 
cable counsel. “ What excuse could 1 make to my father for wish- 
ing to go away again?” 

“ My advice would be this: make no excuse at all; tell him the 
whole truth. He might be startled, he might be angry, but he 
would respect your motive, and he would appreciate your straight- 
forwardness. Take my advice, Julian.” 

There was another pause, a crisis wherein a heart strong for the 
right would have leaped at once to a right decision. Julian Serl- 
cote hesitated, then said, slowly and sadly: 

“ can’t be done.” 

“ Why not?” 

There was no reply. To have replied truthfully would have in- 
volved further confession — confession of debts, and of things done 
to cover debts, that Julian knew his father would neitlier forget nor 
forgive readily. His absence would bring about disclosures that he 
dared not even think of. 

“ You are not thinking of the volunteers’ ball?” Whitehouse 
asked, presently. 

“ Well, 1 shouldn’t like to be away,” replied Julian, not sorry to 
have a straw to catch at in his extremity. “ Besides, the affair is 
fixed for the 25th of next month. 1 couldn’t go before that time. 

“1 think you could,” said Whitehouse, knowing that the ball 
would be a test in more ways than one. “ 1 think you could if you 
tried. It seems to me that your only'safety lies in acting at once. 
If I were in your place, and had a father like yours, 1 should go 
home now— to-night—and tell him whatever it was necessary to tell. ” 

Julian was touched — almost was he persuaded, but not quite. 
Whitehouse never knew how nearly successful he had been. It 
seemed to him that Julian was more dogged, more irritatingly per- 
tinacious, than he had ever known him. For a moment he half re- 
pented o'f the effort he had made, in the days that came after, he 


28 


A LOST SOK’. 


repented bitteily that his effort had not been made witn tenfold de- 
termination. 


CHAPTER VI. 

AH ME, THE SORROW DEEPENS DOWN. 

Woman, one weak, as you say. 

And loving of all things to be passive, 

Passive, patient, receptive, yea. 

Even of \vi*ong and misdoing. 

Arthur Hugh Clough. 

It was fortunate— or unfortunate— for Julian that just at this 
juncture none of his family seemed to have leisure to be very anx- 
ious about him. Elizabeth vras ill, suffering from a dangerous ill- 
ness, and everybody’s thought was about her. 

This commonplace elder sister was strangely missed from the 
household. She was not clever, no one could remember ever having 
even smiled or sighed over anything Elizabeth had said; but she was 
much given to smiling herself; it was an easy substitute for speech, 
a thing by no means easy. Perhaps it was this genial, honest smile 
of hers that was so much wanted now that it was missing, and it 
may be that other little-prized things were also discovered to be of 
value; household order and punctuality and a pair of capable wom- 
anly hands, ready in womanly fashion to do whatever might be 
found to do with all their might. Mrs. Serlcote was nervous and 
tearful and fussily helpless; the children were awed into sad, silent 
idleness. Agnes’ whole time was spent in Elizabeth’s room. 

Poor old Joshua Serlcote seemed to be never weary of wandering 
up and down between that room and the shop. He used to stop at 
the foot of the stairs, take oft his boots there, and then go up qui- 
etly, grimly, with head erect and lips compressed, the tenderness in 
him nowise visible save in tbe act he did. Agnes used to listen for 
his gentle tap at the door. She liked his coming. Sometimes when 
Elizabeth was asleep he would stay a little and sit and talk by the 
fire in soft whispers. Agnes did not know it, he hardly knew it 
himself, but there was no one else in the house to whom he talked 
so much or with so little reserve. 

When he had first talked to her of Julian, the old man had be- 
trayed with touching simplicity the pride and delight he had in his 
son. No detail seemed to have been too minute tor his notice. “ 1 
never saw the gentleman who could hand a tea-cup with more grace 
than that wfiich is natural to my boy,” he said one day. Agnes 
could not help smiling, but she was much impressed. It seemed 
strange that the stiff, prim, ungraceful old man should have an eye 
so keen for gracefulness. ‘ She never forgot that, nor some other 
things that slipped quietly and sadly out of sight. 

Then came a time wherein his talk about Julian insensibly took 
an apologetic tone. Whatever the son did the father seemed anx- 
ious "to set in the fairest light possible. He never lost an opportunity 
of doing this. It comforted him, helped him to believe his own 
word. No one knew how pathetically he had determined to be- 
lieve it. 


A LOST SOK. 


39 


Now, however, rumor had reached his ear, the pain had gone 
deeper into his heart because of it, and the old man had tor some 
lime past fallen into silence concerning his eldest son. 

Agnes had not seen Julian for over a week. He was seldomer 
than ever to be seen in the house or the shop, or in any place where 
he might reasonably have been looked for, and there was a kind of 
impassiveness about him that precluded much questioning. Even 
his father felt it, hesitated, and suppressed inquiries that would have 
been better made. It was known that the volunteer ball was im- 
pending, that Julian believed himself under the necessity of super- 
intending the preparations in person; in fact, he made quite a hard- 
ship of it. The Town Hall had to be decorated, the feminine taste 
of the neighborhood— or rather such of it as was available — had to 
be pressed into the service, and it was well known that there was 
no other person belonging to the corps so thoroughly fitted for du- 
ties of this kind as Julian Serlcote. 

His satisfaction with this state of things was genuine, so far as it 
went, but it did not go nearly so far with him now as it w^ould have 
done a year ago. That fair youthful face of his was already begin- 
ning to speak of a life not fair in any way. He complained of weari- 
ness, and it was not difficult to believe him; belief was more diffi- 
cult when he strove after that easy disengaged tone and manner that 
had been one of his most winning fascinations. 

He disappeared very early on the day before the ball. His father 
had meant to urge a single word of remonstrance, perhaps to add 
one of warning also. Poor old man! he had thought over it much, 
nay, he had even uttered a prayer over it, that it might prevail a 
little, that he might speak without anger, without hardness. But 
no chance was given him of speaking at all. Julian did not return 
until the evening, just in time to dress; he had not a minute for 
anything else. 

He looked unusually well, and he knew it. He was excited al- 
ready, and his excitement lent a glow of color to his face, a deeper 
luster to his eyes. He had taken extra pains, too, with his beautiful 
yellow hair, brushing it into the soft waves and curls that he knew 
Agnes so much liked to see. His first thought of vanity turned to 
her. Should he go gently to his sister’s room for a second or so? 
He stood hesitating at the top of the long passage, strongly inclined 
to venture down. He might have gone, and it might have been well 
for him; but just at that moment the band struck up a stirring 
strain in the Corn Market; it was quite time he was at his post. 

Think of it then, more than a week since Agnes had had any 
sight of him! Had the separation been the ordinary one of miles, 
Agnes Dyne was a woman to have borne it with at least ordinary 
resignation. Her love was not of the restless^ doubting, passionate 
kind that is for some people the only form of love. She was true 
and faithful herself, and had looked for nothing but truth and 
faithfulness in return. 

Julian had quite insight enough to know something of the work- 
ings of a nature so different from, his own. He did not think that 
because Agnes was quiet and natural and undemonstrative in her 
loving, as she was in all other things, that therefore her love was a 
thing ot no depth or intensity. There had been tipies when he 


30 


A LOST SON. 


■would have been glad to think so, when his knowledge of her 
strong deep-rooted aifectiDn had been little more than a burden to 
him: "but these times were transient and surprising to himself in sane 
moments. 

These saner moments of his were few and tar between now. Life 
was putting on tor him the aspect of a dark and wide confusion. He 
drifted with this current and with that, finding no anchorage, seek- 
ing none. 

The ancients had a belief that temporary bewilderments of this 
kind might be Heaven-sent. It was an easy, if not a satisfactory, 
way of accounting for things not satisfactory in themselves. Does 
any remnant of this notion linger, facilitating self-forgiveness, 
weakening resolution, making repentance itself a thing to be repent- 
ed of? "" 

Agnes Dyne sat altogether silent, altogether stirless, while Julian 
■was leaving his room, coming down the three steps at the door of 
it, standing hesitant on the landing. She understood it all, knew 
how he would look, the pardonable touch of vanity that would be 
in him, the desire to have that vanity gratified. Her heart seemed 
to stand still too, until the band struck up and Julian hurried away; 
then it beat somewhat wildly until it flagged to the dull sickening 
sound of the door closing after him. 

She wished she had gone out to him as he stood there. Why had 
she not? Was she resenting his absences, his neglects, his cold- 
nesses? If so, then she was acting foolishly, as she knew. Resent- 
ment, betray itself how it will, never yet wrought any touch of ac- 
ceptable sorrow in man or in 'v\^oman; never yet infused life into a 
languid love, or helped for a moment to revive a dead or dying one. 

Bui Agnes could feel little self-distress here. She knew sadly 
that she bad obeyed stronger and truer instincts. If she had loved 
him less she might have been less diffident in her love. 

Sitting silently in that prosaic room of Elizabeth’s, with the heavy 
sound of the closing door lingering on her ear, with heavier things 
lying on her heart, she was more conscious of sorrow than she had 
ever been before. She more conscious of sorrow, more con- 
scious also of the love that made her sorrow. 

In almost all true affections there are hours wherein the strength, 
the reality, of the feeling seems to dawn anew with sudden power. 
Life is lit up with a new light, hidden things are made visible- 
hidden or unrecognized pains and troubles as well as unrecognized 
joys. 

This was such a moment of reawakening for Agnes. Love 
slighted, wounded, stung into passionate longing, surpasses in 
strength love satisfied or hopeful as far as the storm-troubled sea sur- 
passes the sleeping lake. 

No such hour of wild unrest had ever been hers hitherto; her 
emotion was stronger than herself, and therefore not to be under- 
stood of her, nor altogether controlled. 

Hers was not a tearful nature, and it seemed to be no time for 
weeping over any sorrow of her own while watching by the sick-bed 
of another; yet a very tempest of tears shook her as she sat there, 
tears not to be forgotten so long as anything should be remembered. 
Elizabeth was sleeping quietly; Agnes crept away to the other end 


A LOST SOJiT. 31 

of the room. All the others had gone to bed save Joshua 8erlcote, 
who sat alone in the parlor below. 

Poor old man, he too had been intending to go for some time; he 
hardly knew why he did not go. He was weary, more with an ill- 
concealed anxiety than with any labor that he had done. His sole 
consolation, the long clay pipe, was less consolatory than usual. The 
fire, let him attend to it how he would, refused to be a cheerful fire 
at that hour of the night; fresh coal seemed to burn to dead white 
ashes as if by alchemy. 

Once he thought of stealing up to his daughter’s room, but now 
that she was out of danger, perhaps Agnes would be sleeping. He 
wished that he too could sleep and forget the trouble that he could 
neither look at bravely nor put away from him. 

The hours crept on very slowly; midnight, two o’clock, three, 
four. One more pipe and then he would go to bed, certainly he 
would go after one more. This he said to himself a dozen times. 
But as it was getting so late it might as well be a little later. Half 
an hour could not matter now; if only the fire would burn, if the 
room Tvere not so chilly, he should not mind in the least. 

He was too much wearied for any impatience, for anything but 
quietly sitting there, not knowing why he sat. 

As the morning went on once or twice sounds from the street 
reached him, rousing him to slight touches of resentment, stirring 
that other watcher in the room above to new fears and sadness not 
at all slight. 

All through the night they had heard the Town Hall clock boom- 
ing out slowly and solemnly through the darkness, speaking of quite 
other things than the revel going on below. 

No tinkling cemetery bell was ever half so impressive as that 
ancient clock of Lyme-St. -Mary’s striking in the night. If ever you 
had listened to its tone while watching or suffering, you never heard 
it again without hearing the echo of those hours wherein you listened 
so sadly. 

It was a long time after five o’clock had struck when sounds of 
uncertain feet and much-raised voices were heard coming down the 
passage that led to the side door of Joshua feerlcote’s house. The 
old man listened nervously, irritably; then a long loud knock awoke 
in him a feeling that was half anger, half fear. 

There w^as no light when he opened the door, but just then Agnes 
came tremblingly to the top of the stairs with a lamp in her hand. 

“ Remain where you are,” her uncle said, in a hard, grating tone. 
Then he turned angrily to the noisy group outside; he could not dis- 
tinguish any face. A voice out of the darkness said, amiably, 

” Brought your son home, sir.” 

” He ain’t well,” said another voice, equally pleasant in tone. 

“Been dancin’ too much,” added an explanatory person in the 
background. 

“ All along o’ that ere young lady wi’ yellow hair and blue-an’- 
silver gownd,” apologized a fourth. 

“ Silence, every one of you!” cried Joshua Serlcote. 1 use the 
word “ cried ” considerately, for his tone was one of such extreme 
pain that no other word would do so well. 

“ Silence! — Julian, are you there? Dismiss your friends, sir.” 


A LOST SOX. 


32 

Imagine it— that gray -haired, irreproachable old man watching by 
the sofa in the narrow, chilly back-parlor tor another hour or more, 
watching in the strictest silence. 

Then he bestirred himself. The man who had sat there all night, 
with no creature comfort save his clay pipe, betook himself to ihe 
making of strong tea for the bright-haired Absalom who had bowed 
his spirit to the very dust; and his Absalom took it, but not with 
the grace with which he had been wont to handle a tea-cup. 

This was no time for words. Julian watched his father’s tremu- 
lous, awkward movements, saw his gray, worn face, that seemed to 
have grown gray since 3’esterday, and, seeing, he was touched to 
things he dared not utter. 

They sat there till the wondering Sarah broke in upon them with 
brush and duster, then the lather and son went upstairs together, 
the son to sleep heavily till the middle of the day, the father to find 
sleep not possible, nor rest of any kind for mind or body. 

There was one other sleepless head, wearied with listening, think- 
ing, sorrowing, praying; nay, there were two who had not slept 
much— Martin, in his attic room overhead; Agnes, in the room down 
the long passage. 

Since Julian’s return her sorrow had been even more bewildering 
than before, more mixed with pity and perplexing doubt and yearn- 
ing forgiveness. She had acknowledged to herself that his character 
was one that it was very difficult for her to understand, but she 
understood something of his capacity for suffering from remorse. 
There had been times when she — not knowing his error — had 
fancied his contrition exaggerated; and, remembering these times, 
she grieved sadly for the grief that she knew must be his to-day. 

She w^as not wrong in fearing that that would be a dark day for 
Julian. It was darker than she knew. 

Tlie night that had passed w^as a kind of crisis in his downward 
progress — one of those turning-points that affect a man’s position 
and color the character he bears with tints more indelible than he 
may be aware of at the time. 

Julian was not fully aware of the causes he had for sorrow, but 
he had no wish to know more than he knew already. He dared not 
look back, still less dared he look forward. 

The November afternoon w^as passing on when he came down from 
his room. A gray gloom hung over the town; the house was still 
and silent. There was no one in the sitting-room save his mother, 
who was knitting socks for him, wishing mildly that he would not 
vex his father so much, nor run such dreadful risks from exposure 
to night air. At the same time she had a private opinion that her 
husband was apt to vex himself needlessly where Julian was con- 
cerned. Once during the forenoon she had ventured upon a remon- 
strance. 

“You shouldn’t expect too much, Joshua,” she said, in tones 
that were weakly acidulous. “ Y^oung people will be young people, 
remember.” 

Finding that this original proposition was received in silence, Mrs. 
Serlcote yielded to a certain sub-indignant feeling, only to be ex- 
pressed by the faster clicking of her knitting-needles. It was a re- 
lief to her when Julian came down, looking chill and pale, and 


A LOST SO A'. 


33 


much in need of the appetizing little repast which she had duly pre- 
pared. He was in a mood to be grateful for sympathy of this 
practical nature — very quietly and silently grateful. 

He did not remain there long; tea-time was drawing near, and he 
bad no wish to face either liis father or Martin so long as he could 
avoid doing so. 

It was nearly dark now. He went up to the drawing-room and 
lit the gas, not perceiving a tall, slight figure standing between the 
curtains of the further window. He was a little startled when a 
troubled wistful voice said, ‘‘Julian!’* 

It thrilled through him as a cry of pain might have done. He 
was quickly by Agnes’ side, holding her hand caressingly, speaking 
in soothing tones. 

“ What is it?”— he asked— “ what is the matter? Are you ill?” 
Then he said, tremulously, “Is it because of me? You are not 
grieving for me? Don’t do that, 1 am not worth it. You must try 
to forget me; 1 think 1 shall have to go away soon. 1 don’t know 
what will happen to me, but 1 should like to know tljat you are not 
caring, Agnes; you must try not to care— not to suffer. At the best 
1 was never worthy of you.” 

Again tears were dropping slowly on Agnes’ face; sad, bitter 
tears, not to be dried by being told not to care. 

“ Do you think one can only love people who are worthy of being 
loved?” she asked. 

“1 don’t know,” he said, absently. He was thinking of other 
things— thinking thoughts that took the strength from him even as 
he stood. He sat down, or rather sunk down, despondently. 

“ Don’t talk to me, Agnes,” he said; “ at any rate don’t talk in 
that way. You would not if you knew all; instead of loving you 
would despise me.” 

“ Do you think so?” she asked, speaking through her tears, lay- 
ing her hand softly on his. “ Do you think 1 could ever hate what 
1 have longed for during the last eight days with an intensity that 
has been almost sin. Julian, 1 don’t think you quite know what 
my love is.” 

She spoke so simply, so truly, and out of such a depth of trouble, 
that he, in that sadder trouble of his, could find no reply. 

“ If you were grieving,” she went on, “ sorry for the things you 
say 1 don’t know about, why not put them away from you at once 
and forever? Is it not possible — 

“ ‘ To be as if you had not been till now, 

And now were— simply what you choose to be?’ ” 

Julian looked for a moment as if he were half bewildered by the 
idea. A change passed over his face; he seemed to awaken more 
completely to consciousness of his sorrow and his sin. 

“ if it were possible,” he said, “ 1 would strain every power that 
is in me to do it.” 

“ Can you not tell me why you think it impossible?” 

“ No. If 1 could tell you— or, rather, if 1 could tell my father — 
the worst would be over, but 1 can’t do that. He has trusted me so 
that 1 think 1 could face death sooner than face him with the con- 
fession that 1 had betrayed his trust.” 

2 


34 


A LOST 


This was worse than Agnes had feared. She only half under- 
stood, but she shrunk tremblingly from trying to understand. 

“ Is your father so hard?” she said, gently. “ Can you not see 
for yourself how he loves you? and is it not the grand use and 
beauty of having some one to love you that you may have some one 
to bear with you?” 

There was a slight pause; Julian spoke again. 

He has borne much, but there are things that he would never 
bear. 1 know him better than you can know him, Agnes: and 1 
know myself, or rather the position 1 am in. Don’t make another 
effort to save me. Forget me, and help my father to forget me. 
Remind him that he has other sons who may be more to him than 
1 have been.” 

“ 1 should be saying what 1 did not believe. Oh, Julian, think 
of the Shepherd’s joy over the one sheep that had strayed ; the ninety- 
and nine that had never wandered were as nothing to Him in com- 
parison. Your father is troubled now — so much troubled with 
doubts and fears and anxieties, that if 3 "ou were to go to him con- 
fidently and tell him the worst, 1 feel certain he would be so much 
relieved as to be ready both to forgive and to forget.” 

Again for a few silent moments Julian Serlcote halted between 
two opinions. To get rid of that perilous load of secret sin before 
it bi ought him to an open shame seemed far too fair a possibility to 
be realized. Yet the prospect made his breathing quicker, his pulse 
irregular. There was no power in him to think clearly and steadily, 
much less to resolve with any degree of firmness. He was tied and 
bound with the chain of his past sins, even more completely than 
he knew. 

“ 1—1 will think of it,” he said, falteringly. “ 1 know it is my 
onl}^ chance.” 

He had risen now as if to go. As he turned, Agnes spoke again 
beseechingly, fervidly: 

“ Don’t rest content with the thinking of it, Julian,” she begged 
“ at least pray over it. Remember this: 

“ ‘ There is no place where earth’s sorrows 
Are more felt than up in heaven ; 

There is no place where earth’s failings 
Have such kindly judgment given.’ ” 

Then he went out with these words ringing in his ears. They 
had no power to soothe him. He felt more unhinged than before, 
more desperately in need of some nepenthe that should lull his soul 
into that death-like sleep which wasUie only peace now possible to 
him. 

Martin was standing outside in the dimly-lighted Corn Market, 
watching and whistling, with his hands in his pockets. It was a 
fine evening, cold, but clear and starlight. 

” Come foi a walk, Julian?” he said, in that pleasant, winning 
voice of his. 

But Julian was in no mood for walking. 

” Can’t this evening,” he said; “lam going up to the Westmin- 
ster.” 

Martin wondered at him sadly. Was Julian bent on finding to 


A LOST SOii. 35 

the uttermost how true it is that some men can only become pure 
from their errors by suffering for them. 


CHAPTER Yll. 

MARTIN DOES EYIL THAT GOOD MAY COME. 

A nature quiveringly poised 
In reach of storms, whose qualities may turn 
To murdered virtues that still walk as ghosts 
Within the shuddering soul and shriek remorse. 

The Spanish Gypsy. 

Those people spoke altogether unfairly — one may say ignorantly 
— who attributed Julian Serlcote’s deterioration solely to the influ- 
ence of ]\Irs. Talbot. She had — perhaps not altogether uncon- 
sciously — thrown over him a certain spell of infatuation, which had 
blinded him, intoxicated him, confused his w^ay altogether. She 
had drawn him from his home' sympathized with his errors and 
his weaknesses, but she had not^been the cause of these errors. The 
lines upon which his life had been laid down before Mrs. Talbot’s 
arrival were sufficiently determinative. 

He had never really swerved from them. He was proceeding 
steadily— or unsteadily — toward that dark vanishing-point where the 
said lines converged. People had ceased to whisper; they spoke 
openly and unhesitatingly. That prestige which he had so appre- 
ciated himself, and which his father had so valued for him, was fast 
departing, and its departure was felt both painfully and distinctly. 

Change was visible even in his appearance. There were times 
when there was an expression on his face that was almost one of 
degradation. His temper, too, was becoming uncertain. The chil- 
dren were not now always glad when Julian came in. His manner, 
that had been so kindly end pleasant, was often sullen or peevish. 
The poor little things learned to watch and wait; to withhold any 
tendency to loo sudden joy if on any occasion Julian seemed to be 
himself again. 

But Julian’s happiest, or rather his least miserable, hours were 
spent at Mrs. Talbot’s. It would be difficult to define the exact 
nature of the feelings he had toward her, or to describe the evil case 
into whicli his love for Agnes Dyne had fallen. He was bewildered 
himself, and doubtful. That he still had love for Agnes he knew 
certainly— nay, he even came so near the trutli as to perceive that it 
was the realit}^ of his lore for her, his appreciation of her goodness 
and purity, that many a time kept him from her presence, that 
oftener still made him seem stiff, and cold, and unconfiding, w^hile 
she was spending her best and tenderest self in efforts to draw him 
Irom the wilderness wherein he wandered. His conscience dis- 
turbed him, but less and less distressingly as the days went on. He 
had refused to listen too often and too persistently for this still 
small voice to have much power over him now. 

Still, it had power enough to make him glad of anything that 
should conduce to even partial oblivion. 

It was more than merely pleasant to him to be soothed by the 
languors and sentimentalities of Mrs. Talbot’s emotional music to 


36 


A LOST SOK. 


forget his sorrows, his sins, and their probable consequences, in 
listening to her low and unconsciously artificial tones— tones that, 
notwithstanding their unreality, were listened to everywhere with 
deference and attention. Bhe was never at a loss tor topics of con- 
versation. Art, science, literature, music, politics, or cheap theology 
—nothing came amiss. Her silvery-sounding platitudes were 
always ready, always selected with wonderful tact to suit the society 
in which she happened to find herself. High Church, Low 
Church, or no church at all, it did not matter to Mrs. Talbot. Peo- 
ple invariably left her presence more satisfied with their own views 
than before, and more than ever convinced that she was the one 
understanding woman they had ever met. 

Of course she knew, as everybody else in that little world of 
Lyme-St. -Mary’s knew, that Julian Serlcote was just now “ prom- 
ising badly;” that was the euphuism they used. Yet it did not 
alter Mrs. "Talbot’s manner to him in the least. Why should it? 
She was a woman who knew something of the ways of a wider 
world than that, and was proud of her knowledge. Even when a 
kindly but narrow-minded friend warned her that her name was 
being coupled with young Serlcote’s more freely and frequeiitly 
than was expedient, she only smiled, but her smile was very pity- 
ing, very superior. She did not say much, but in the few words 
she used she managed to imply a great deal more. 

That was her way, and a clever way it was. She could, by sym- 
pathizing with people, open their eyes to grievances that afiected 
themselves, but which they had hitherto lacked either sense or sensi- 
tiveness to perceive. Julian had never really felt how narrow his 
home was, how uncongenial his surroundings, how impossible the 
slow, monotonous life that he was expected to live, until Mrs. Tal- 
bot’s compassion awoke him to fuller consciousness. There had 
been times when by the gentlest and vaguest suggestions in the 
world she had caused him to look with^ very doubtful satisfaction 
upon hts engagement. Her influence in this and in other things 
might only be temporary, but it was not the less a weight in the 
balance 

Julian was to be found at her house well-nigh every evening now. 
Sometimes other friends were there; at other .times, to Julian’s 
greater contentment, no one was present save Lerna. 

It was not that Mrs. Talbot and he had anything special to say to 
each other, but that the things that were not special could be talked 
of with less restraint. If he were in a despondent mood Mrs. Tal- 
bot was more at liberty to devote herself to the task of cheering him; 
if he were musically inclined she could play the music she knew 
would please him best. By degrees he came to feel a silent resent- 
ment if any other friend of hers dropped in unexpectedly, more 
especially if that other friend was Dr. Sargent. 

One evening — it was again close to Christmas-time — Julian had 
left her house much earlier than usual and in no very pleasant 
mood. He had gone there tortured with remorse, with dread* of 
impending discovery, haunted by the silently reproachful faces he 
had left in the Corn Market, wearied of life and of everything that 
life seemed to ofter him, and feeling that even in that rose-pink 
drawing-room, with its gilding, its sympathetic sentiment, its cush- 


A LOST SOX. 37 

ions, and its coosolalions, there would be no peace for him that 
night. 

But the room and its occupant had wrought their old charm. 
There was no reproach for him there, silent or other; no one to irri- 
tate him by urging him to eflort that was distasteful, to acts that 
were impossible. Mrs. Talbot’s gracious smile, her soothing music, 
her quiet, tranquil ways, had never been more grateful to him. 

But he had hardly begun to give himself up to the restful feeling 
that was stealing upon him when Dr. Sargent announced himself, 
walking in, greeting Mrs. Talbot and Lerna, seating himself, with 
an air of familiarity that was most disturbing. Mrs. Talbot seemed 
disturbed too, even slightly tremulous, and Lerna smiled and 
blushed in quite a mystifying manner. The doctor himself ap- 
peared to be in an unusually comfortable mood, and more disposed 
to patronize Julian than he had been for some time. 

Julian could not bear it long; he grew feverish and irritable, and 
rose to go suddenly. Dr. Sargent smiled in a very vexatious way, 
and Mrs. Talbot did not mend matters by seeming somewhat colder 
than usual. She gave him her hand very graciously, but her tones 
were distinctively polite as she said, “ Good-evening, Mr. Serlcote, 
1 hope we shall see yoii again some time this week.” 

Julian looked up with undisguised astonishment. He had for so 
long come and gone just as it suited him, that he could not remem- 
ber the time when he had had any invitation. Was this meant to 
put things on a new footing? — and why? 

He was leaving the room, when Mrs. Talbot spoke again, less 
frigidly than before. 

” By the way, is not Miss Dyne’s year of mourning over now?” 
she asked. 

“ Yes,” said Julian, blushing hotly, and feeling the doctor’s smile 
lie like a ray from a burning-glass. 

” Then do bring her with you. Tell her not to wait to be form- 
ally invited, but to come up in a friendly way. Shall 1 fix an even- 
ing? Shall 1 say next Tuesday, and 1 will have one or two other 
friends to meet you?” 

‘‘ Thanks, thanks!” said Julian, much excited, and hurrying away 
even as he spoke; and it may be noted as curious enough tnat in the 
midst of the wild tumult of feeling that possessed him his first distinct 
idea was one of indignation on Agnes’ account. The mere mention 
of her name by Mrs. Talbot in the presence of Dr. Sargent had, for 
various not very patent reasons, jarred upon him, Mrs. Talbot had 
so seldom spoken of Agnes, and had even contrived to make him 
feel as it there were some latent delicacy in refraining from speak- 
ing of her. And as to waiting a whole year because of her mourn- 
ing before inviting her to spend a quiet evening, there was absurdity 
on the face of it! 

Still, unreasonably enough, Julian’s resentment glanced aside 
from Mrs. Talbot. He could not blame her. It was easy to blame 
himself, easier still to blame Dr. Sargent. The more he thought the 
more confused and vehement his thought became. 

His sense of disapprobation was keen, but in what was he disap- 
pointed? Had he missed an evening’s entertainment or a life’s pur- 
pose? 


38 


A LOST SOiir. 


He did Dot know himself. He went striding along the dark road, 
through mud and sleet and piercing wind. He could see nothing, 
hear nothing, hardly even hear his own footsteps. Other footsteps 
were approaching. The two black figures had nearly walked each 
other down, when both uttered a warning exclarnation. Then 
Julian demanded, sternly: 

“ What are you about here, Martin? Acting as a spy, 1 suppose?’* 

“1 was intending to wait until I met with you,” said Martin, 
with some determination. 

“ Exactly! And now that you have met me?” 

“ 1 want to speak to you.” " 

“ Well, speak out! I’m not exactly in a listening mood; but say 
what you’ve got to say.” 

” 1 can’t say what I’ve got tp say here,” replied Martin, striving 
with the utmost effort to keep command of his words and tones. 
” If you will come home with me, and go up to my room or 5"ours, 
we can talk things over quietly.” 

A pretty programme!” sneered Julian. ‘‘Come along to the 

estminster, if you are bent on making yourself disagreeable.” 

Martin offered no objection. The two men went silently along 
the road and into the town. The w^et streets were cheerless in the 
dim lamplight. Julian shivered and looked pale as he w^ent up the 
steps of the hotel. Perhaps he w^as in need of that steaming glass 
for which he called so eagerly and appeared to enjoy so thoroughly. 
Martin waited in unrefreshed patience. 

” Now, then, old wet blanket, let’s have this doleful story,” said 
Julian, in more amiable tones. 

“ It won't take long in the telling,” said Martin, fixing his sad 
blue-gray eyes steadfastly on his cousin. ” Grant & Greenlow have 
WTitten to demand payment of that account of theirs.” 

Julian’s paleness became paler, and his lips turned to an ashen 
gray. He did not speak. Martin had half expected an oath, a rare 
thing from Julian; but this was a rare occasion. There are, how- 
ever, circumstances under which the strongest language is weaker 
than silence. 

■When Julian did speak it w’as to ask a question, but his tone was 
that of one who affirms. 

” I suppose my father has got the letter?” he said. 

Martin’s guilt had now to come to light. He blushed hotly and 
quickly as a girl blushes. 

” No,” he said, speaking rapidly and with evident shame and dis- 
tress. ‘‘ No, I have it with me. I have intercepted it and opened 
it. Of course I knew what it was. I have expected it for weeks. 
It only came to-night. I could not rest until I had seen you.” 

Julian mused a while; leaning his head on his hand, staring into 
the fire. 

” It’s all very good, my dear fellow,” he said, presently; “but 
it’s only a respite. They’ll write again and speedily, if this letter is 
not attended to.” 

” And you can’t attend to it?” 

” AVh}'- ask the question? 1 can write, asking for time; I can do 
nothing more, as you know. I ha've not had a shilling these two 
months but what I’ve got from my mother.” 


A LOST SOiT. 


39 


There was another silence, which was broken by Martin. 

“ Is it any use my entreating you again to tell your father?'’ he 
asked. 

“Not the slightest. 1 will face any other course than that.” 

“ What other course is open to you?” 

“ There are two others, and only two, committing suicide and ab- 
sconding. I shall try the latter to begin with.” 

Was he mad, altogether mad? Martin wondered. Sitting there, 
possessed of youth, of a constitution naturally ijood, of a certain 
amount of a certain kind of talent; the son oi a father who secretly 
■worshiped him, who openly and patiently bore with him; the be- 
trothed husband of the one good and beautiful and lovable woman 
that Martin had ever seen, and yet giving himself up to despair and 
ruin, without hope and without eftort. The sight was as incompre- 
hensible as it was distressing. 

“ Julian,” he said, presently, “ to talk in this wild way is foolish 
enough, as you know; to act with any such wildness would be 
worse than foolish. This is a bad business, and, to speak plainly, I 
fear you know of others as bad. But 1 feel convinced yet that we 
might make matters all straight again in a couple of years, that is, 
if you will set your shoulder to the wheel at once. Aou have a 
good allowance; and my uncle told me that he should make at least 
half of the business over to you when you married; in fact, I be- 
lieve he is only waiting for you to settle down to make the ofter. 
As for present difficulties or anything that may turn up unexpect- 
edly, well, you know, 1 don’t mind a little unpleasantness on my 
own account. I can take a fair amount, of blame any day. Let me 
manage that. And as to this affair of Grant & Greenlow’s 1 have 
sixty pounds in Borrest’s bank — that’s about half. Send it up to- 
morrow. and ask for time for the remainder. We must manage it 
between us, somehow.” 

How easy it all seemed to Martin! Julian thought, rather bitterly. 
How impossible it was to himself! He sat there leaning over the 
table with his face buried in his hands, his whole attitude expres- 
sive of the misery and dejection that possessed him. 

“ It’s no use, Martin,” he said, sadly, after a time. “ 1 shall not 
take one penny of your money, and you shall not take one iota of 
my blame. But don’t think me ungrateful, don’t think that 1 can’t 
see all that your offer means.” 

“ 1 shall certainly think that you don’t see what 1 mean if you 
refuse.” 

“ Refuse I do, and shall! I’m low, but not so low as that!” 

“ Then you will have to go lower.” 

“ Doubtless; but 1 shall go alone.” 

“That you can’t do. Julian, listen; I’ll tell you another piece 
of truth that 1 never intended to breathe. I’m making these otters 
as much for her sake as for yours. If 1 could save her from the 
pain that she will suffer— that she is suffering — through you, i 
would willingly give all 1 have to give.” 

Julian looked up, and a tinge of color came to his face. 

“ Don’t misunderstand me,” Martin went on, tremulously; “I 
should as soon dream of falling in love with one of the royai prin- 


40 


A LOST SOlS". 


cesses, but 1 might even dream of averting trouble from one of these 
if 1 had the chance.” 

In the midst of his distress J ulian could hardly help smiling at 
the thought of Martin as a rival— plain-looking, sallow, awkward 
Martin Brooke! 

There is no need to remain in that small private room at the 
Westminster any longer; no need to listen to any more of Martin’s 
unsuccessful pleading, or of Julian’s determined resistance. If 
Martin had known all, he might hare given in sooner, but it seemed 
to him that Julian was shutting out hope willfully and blindly. 

AVhat could be done? Marlin wondered as he went home alone, 
reluctantly leaving Julian behind him. Nothing had been settled 
or decided. That letter of Grants Greenlow’s was still in Martin’s 
pocket, . weighing heavily there — and other things were weighing 
more heavil}' yet in bis heart. It had been once on his lips to ask 
Julian straight out what truth there was in the rumor that connected 
Mrs. Talbot’s name with his so openly — this not so much tor his own 
satisfaction as for Joshua Serlcote’s, who was, as he knew, fretting 
not a little in secret over the hints that he had had concerning 
Julian’s infatuation. Martin himself had for some time found it 
very difficult to give any credence to these reports, but latterly he 
had been obliged to confess that Julian was leirding color to them. 
Doubtless it was done more in idleness and thoughtlessness than of 
set purpose; but Martin wished now that he had made some allu- 
sion to the matter ; he might at least have offered a warning. 

A. ver 3 ^ few days later the inhabitants of Lyme-St. -Mary’s, in their 
surprise and sorrow, were casting blame about everywhere except 
on Julian Serlcote himself. He was so j^oung, and had been so 
bright and pleasant and generous; it was his very virtues that led 
him on into vice. Why had no one taken him in hand— tried to 
arrest him? If not by persuasion, then by sheer force? Those who 
knew least about him felt this conviction strongest— that he might 
have been saved if any human being had strongly willed to save 
him. 


CHAPTER Vlll. 

TOO LATE. 

Man should do nothing that he should repent; 

But if he have, and say that he is sorry, 

It is a worse fault, if he be not tmly. 

Beaumont and Fletcher. 

That was a livelier Christmas-eve than usual. The Serlcotes 
had always kept up a few traditional customs — such as the eating of 
mince-pies, the burning of a Yule-log, and the ceremonious cutting 
of the big plum-cake, but these observances had generally been con- 
ducted after a very dry and lifeless fashion. Things were a little 
changed this year. There w^as to be a children’s party on the day 
after Christmas-day— a real pari}’’, such as Fanny and Nellie had 
been dreaming of half theii lives, and Agnes had undertaken to 
superintend matters from beginning to end. 

For the first lime a Christmas-tree had entered the house— a tall. 


A LOST SO]Sr. 


41 


graceful fir-tree top, that seemed to have been taken straight out of 
a picture. Joshua had bought it himself in the Corn Market that 
morniug, and it was pleasant to see him rubbing his thin white 
hands as he watched his children’s eyes sparkle. This kind of satis- 
faction was new to him. For the greater part of his life he had — 
perhaps not quite consciously — looked upon women and children as 
creatures to be repressed — repressed as much as possible, and on 
every possible occasion. It rather surprised him to find they would 
bear quite another kind of treatment; it surprised him equally to 
find himself making the necessary experiments. He had been drawn 
into it unawares, and that niece of his, with her quiet smile and her 
gentle ways, was the magnet that had drawn him. He did not dis- 
like her for it. 

He could not keep away from the busy scene; that was also so 
pretty. He was not so much at ease as he tried to seem, but he was 
easier in that little room, where there was such pleasant ado about 
nothing, than he was anywhere else. 

After tea, when it was quite dark, he took his hat and walked with 
great dignity across the square. There was a shop on the other side 
—not exactly a toy-shop, but a place where toys were to be had. 
Joshua went in, stayed a while, and came out behaving very pomp- 
ously all through, and hearing rather than carrying his parcel as he 
might have borne the crown jewels. 

Yet he could not prevent his eyes from twinkling, nor his bands 
from trembling a little as he undid the string. There was an ex- 
clamation that was almost a shout. Such glittering, sparkling treas- 
ures had surely never been provided for any Christmas-tree before! 
There were birds and flowers, fruit and fairies, crimson and gold, 
and silver and green ; crystal lamps with real tapers in them, and 
colored flags of all nations. Sam, who was standing on the side- 
board, was in such hot haste to fasten a flag to the top of the tree 
that he put up the first he could reach ; then there came a real shout 
from John. 

“ That will never do! Can’t have the Stars and Stripes floating 
higher than the Union Jack! Here you are, Sam.” 

Sam was still blushing, the younger ones laughing, the old man 
chuckling quietly, when the door opened and Julian came in, pale 
and weary-looking, but trying with what heart was left in him to 
get up a smile that should be equal to the occasion. 

Kellie was perhaps his favorite sister, and betook her small brown 
head between his hands very tenderly. 

“Oh, mind my hair, Julian,” she said (she was a neat, precise 
little thing)— “ mind my hair, and do come and look; and don’t be 
tired to-night, it is such fun!” 

But Julian was very tired; you had only to look in his face to see 
that. Agnes only glanced at him, once, smiling a greeting to him 
in her own fascinating way. He smiled back, but very sadly; and 
his sadness deepened as she stood there watching her. 

Yet he stood some time, appearing absent, but his brain was very 
busy. 

One thought struck him like a blow—what if he should never 
stand there again? 

He took in the scene in all its details, hardly knowing that he did 


42 


A LOST SOK. 


SO. There was his father by the table, tall and gray, holding him- 
self even more stiffly than usual, yet lor the moment as much 
pleased in the children’s pleasure as were the children themselves, 
by the fire his mother sat knitting, from time to time dropping 
stitches that Elizabeth had to take up again, or remarks that no- 
body thought it worth while to take up. In the middle ol the 
loom, now_on this side of the laden branches, now on that, there 
was his betrothed Agnes— gracious, graceful, winning, as she al- 
ways was, but seeming in some indefinite, sad way, at a new dis- 
tance from him. Did she know it? Did she feel as he did? That 
could hardly be. 

While he was thinking he was noting other and more trifling 
things that were about him; there was the old red chintz, the dingy 
carpet, the commonplace pictures. Then his eye rested on the cage 
where Sam’s linnet hung, then on Sam himself. It did not seem 
so long since Julian had had linnets and thrushes of his own. 

His memory was very vivid to-night, very clear, and opened her 
** folded annals ” with a strange tenderness. 

Was it not all a horrible nightmare that had happened lately? 
Could he not, if he strove sufficiently, free himself from the op- 

E ressive burden that lay on his heart and on his brain, crushing his 
fe and his youth out of him with pitiless insistence? 

He turned away sadly; and his father left the room at the same 
time. 

“Julian,'’ he said, making a rather futile efiort to speak in a 
tone of unconcern— “ Julian, 1 think there is a fire in the drawing- 
room; let us go up and see. 1 rather want to — to talk over some 
little matters.” 

Julian followed his father /^uife silently, but not without a certain 
uneasy fluttering of heart. Had the old man heard anything? 
Well, things could not go more haidly with him than they were 
going already. 

But this fear passed away from him. His father’s manner was 
almost deprecating. 

“Sit down, Julian,” he said— “ sit down. We mustn’t smoke 
here, I suppose, but we can manage without. It’s verj^ cold, 
though, isn’t it? Come nearer the fire.” 

The elder man went on rubbing his hands in that nervous way of 
his; Julian was quite calm. “ Whatever is, is bad, and any change 
is likely to be worse,” he said to himselr, quoting from a page of 
’ “ Middlemarch,” which he had glauced at as it lay on Mrs. Talbot's 
table. Its appropriateness to his own case had struck him at once; 
and he had said it over so often that he had begun to feel as if there 
were some kind of philosophy in it. 

“ You see we shall be going into the accounts presently,” Mr. 
Serlcote began, in an uncertain tone, “ and 1 thought we had better 
— well, better just talk over things, you know You are three-and- 
twenty now, Julian. Time to take life a little— well, a little seri- 
ously, eh?” 

Seriously! Julian put his hand up to his hot forehead and al- 
most smiled. What could he say? Take life seriously, when for 
months past he had taken it as if he had been tottering in the dark 
on the edge of a precipice, knowing that nothing short of a miracle 


A LOST SCJS*. 


43 


cou-ld save him in the end. He had not had experience enough to 
know how many a time such divine miracles are wrought in this 
human world of ours. He had not faith enough to dream for a 
moment that such a miracle could happen to himself. He kept 
blindly to his perilous way, effortless, hopeless, prayerless. He 
would listen patiently to what his father might say; he would not 
vex him; he would try to part from him at least calmly. 

“ You see you have been engaged now over a year,”* Mr. Serlcote 
began again, timidly. “ Of course you are young enough. 1 was 
some years older than you are when 1 married, and — and 1 don't 
wish to hurry you in such a matter, but 1—1 think something 
should be settled for your own sake as well as for Agnes'. What 
are 3"our plans, Julian ?” 

Julian looked up, pale, bewildered, the sadness in his heart as 
plainly written on his face as it could well be. 

What were his plans? 

If he had answered the question honestly to his father, or even to 
himself, it is possible that that miracle of saving might have been 
wrought even at this eleventh hour. 

“ 1 have no very definite plans,” he said, temporizingly. “ My 
way is not clear to me at present.” 

“Ko, no, probably not— not to be expected,” Joshua replied, 
hardly dissatisfied. ” That was why 1 wished to see you this even- 
ing, Christmas Eve! Just the time when one feels inclined to see 
things made straight and pleasant. 1 hope next Christmas Eve 
will find you comfortably settled down here with your wife; and 
your mother and me comfortably settled at Elm House. 1 think of 
buying it, Julian. 1 set my heart on that house when 1 was quite 
a lad, and it has never been in the market since. 1 should like to 
die with fields and green trees all about me; 1 have always felt that. 
It will not cause me much pain to make a change that 1 have al- 
ways looked forward to.” 

Julian’s irresponsiveness had drawn the old man into soliloquy 
quite unawares. This was not at all the line he had intended to 
take. He had meant to be somewhat stern and more decisive in the 
beginning, to make his son to feel for a time that his conduct of 
late had periled his position. This done, he would unbend by de- 
grees. Everything was arranged. The climax was to be one of the 
most effective points in Joshua Serlcote’s history. 

But his own nervousness and Julian’s impassiveness had frus- 
trated his plans altogether. He had surrendered without either 
demand or entreaty. 

Once— it was just at this moment— that prodigal son of his was 
strangely near to confessing all that he had to confess. It was not 
pride that kept him back, nor hardness. There had never been 
anything either proud or hard about Julian Serlcote, and, now that 
he was broken in health and spirit, strength of impulse might at 
any moment have done the work that he should have had strength 
of soul for. His father’s tremulousness had touched him, but at 
the same time it made him hesitate to strike so deep a blow as dis- 
closure of the whole truth would inevitably inflict. 

There is a superstition, beautiful enough, if one thinks of it, that 
an angel passes wherever there is silence. The angel that watched 


44 


A LOST SON. 


the silence of Joshua Serlcote and his son must have passed away 
in tears. 

“ 1 shall take these things with me,” said Joshua, glancing at 
the furniture. ” 1 shall like to have them about me, and you will 
like to have new ones. 1 should say you might begin looking out 
for them any time. One can always get a thing cheaper and better 
when one isn’t exactly weanling it. You will have to do things as 
cheaply as you can, Julian. Those alterations were a terrible busi- 
ness, and old Kobertson wants a long price for Elm House. Two 
thousand five hundred, he says, but T can’t give that; it’s impos- 
sible. Much as 1 want the place, 1 don’t think it wall be possible 
for me to give more than two thousand pounds for it. Yet I don’t 
know, I don’t know. 1 should like to have it. 1 may offer another 
hundred, perhaps a hundred and fifty.” 

Julian almost shivered at the remembrance of Ihe words that had 
been well-nigh on his lips. 

No other angel passed that way; there was no more still silence. 

“ So far as your own future is concerned — your immediate future, 
1 mean,” the old man went on, “ 1 have come to a decision that 1 
think will satisfy you. Remember that 1 have your sisters to think 
of and your two younger brothers. But what is it, Julian? what 
is the matter? Are you not well? Is it possible that you can’t lend 
me your attention for half an hour, sir? that you can’t feign 
an interest in a matter so important to yourself as this?” 

Julian’s absence of mind had forced itself vexatiously upon his 
father’s notice at last. Joshua w^as astounded on perceiving that 
his son was not even listening 

” What is it 1 demand?” he said, in tones that might have been 
imperious but for the broken quiver natural to his age. ” What 
are you thinking of? What do you require? Have 1 not forgotten 
and forgiven more than any human being save yourself has dreamed 
of? Have 1 not planned for you and taken thought for you — who 
have never taken thought for yourself— when I should have been 
sleeping? Have 1 not brought you here to-night for the very pur- 
pose of telling you of the sacrifices that 1 am about to make for 
you? And how are you treating me? Where is your gratitude? 
One w^ould have thought that a sense of the common civility due 
from one human being to another w'ould have prevented you from 
behaving in this way. What do you mean, sir? You have not 
uttered a single word of agreement in anything that I have said.” 

Julian was still calm, calmer than before, and even more despair- 
ing. Nothing that he might do or leave undone, say or leave un- 
said, could make much difference now. 

” I have not spoken because 1 did not wish to vex you,” he said, 
in the soft, sympathetic voice that always moved his father. ” And 
there was another reason, 1 did not wish to imply anything that 
might — that might not be true.” 

” Quite right, quite right! But 1 do not understand you in the 
least. Speak out and speak plainly. Nothing that you can say 
will annoy me as your indifference has annoyed me.” 

” It was not indifference, quite the reverse. 1 was thinking of 
something that will probably distress you; it distresses me, but 1 
am doing ii for the best, because 1 think it kindest and most honor- 


A LOST SON. “iS 

able. It was my intention, it is my intention, to release Agnes 
from her engagement this evening.*’ 

Julian spoke firmly, and looked up firmly to his father’s face when 
he had finished speaking. 

He long remembered that moment — the sudden crimson that 
spread over the old man’s countenance and under his white hair, 
the fierce light that shot from his keen eyes, the strange twitching 
of the muscles about his mouth as he spoke. 

“ Then you shall leave my house this evening,” he said, rising to 
his feet, speaking with passionate vehemence, “ and I will look my 
last upon your face this evening.” 

Julian rose too, pallid, rigid, silent. 

‘‘ 1 suppose this has been brought about by that woman who 
lives in the Grove,” Joshua resumed, with the same uncontrolled 
violence of tone and manner. ” 1 have heard of her, and 1 have 
heard of you. 1 know more than you think. But believe me or 
not as you choose, 1 mean what 1 say. 1 will disinherit you before 
1 sleep, unless you recall the word you said just now. Will you 
do this, or will you not?” 

” 1 can not do it.” 

” Then neither can 1 unsay what 1 have said. You will leave 
my house to-night. 1 will not sleep under the same roof again with 
such a dastard as 1 now know you to be.” 

Joshua knew that these last words had been heard by ears they 
were not intended for. Julian knew it too. They had seen Agnes 
enter the room, pale, wondering, tremulous; but Joshua had not 
refrained from expressing his decision. 

Julian had nothing to gain by hesitancy, or by concealment of his 
intention toward Agnes. 

” Have you heard what my father has said?” he began, turning 
to her. ” He has not spoken without reason. 1 had told him that 
1 nieant to ask you to consider yourself free from the engagement 
that has existed between us. 1 think you will not be so rnuch sur- 
prised as he appears to be. The time is not far distant when you will 
be grateful. There is more that might be said, but 1 can not say it 
now. I can only say ‘ Good-by.’ Forgive me, Agnes, and forget 
me.” 

He held out his hand, and she gave him hers mechanically, not 
knowing the thing that she did, nor attaching meaning to the words 
that she heard. She was unused to scenes like this. It could not 
be that either her uncle or Julian was in earnest. People often said 
things in auger that were not intended to be taken literally. She 
was still looking on in the same uncomprehending way. Julian 
turned sadly from her to his father, holding out his hand again. 

” Will you shake hands with me, father?” 

“Never; never while you live, unless you undo the deed you 
have done to-day.” 

Joshua Serlcote stood there, erect in his pride and his anger, 
stricken in heart with a yet unrealized disappointment, and only 
half-conscious of the import of what had been said and done. It 
is probable that he was as far as Agnes was from believing in any 
finiteness of result likely to follow this quarrel with his son; but he 


46 


A LOST SOiq-. 


was a man who prided himself on keeping his word. It was for 
Julian to consider the consequences. 

Julian had already left the house; lust as he stood he had gone 
snatching his hat from the peg as he went rapidlv through the 
passage, turning neither to the right nor to the left. His father’s 
refusal to shake hands with him had struck him hardlv; dead as 
he was to feeling of almost every kind he yet felt this. " 

The angry flush of color died rapidly from the old man’s face 
after the sound of the closing door had fallen upon his ear. He sat 
down, pale, bewildered, stunned. The suddenness, the unexpected- 
ness of this conclusion to the long-deferred interview with his son 
was om-whelming. ^ He put out his thin nervous-looking hand as 
Agnes went up to him with a gesture that was unspeakably touch- 
ing. It felt very chill and lifeless, and Agnes took it between her 
own two warm ones and held it comfortingly. It was a little ease 
to herself. 

Joshua watched her as she sat on a low stool at his feet, betray- 
ing her suffering only by her silence. She looked up at him once 
trying to smile, but the expression that was on her simple innocent 
face would have suited tears better. 

“ Never mind, my child; never mind,” he sa»id, laying one hand 
tenderly upon her head. “You are young, verv young, you will 
get over it; and I— 1— ” 

“ And you will get over it, too.” she said, softly, and believing the 
words she said. “ We shall all get over it. Julian will come back, 

I know he will come back; and you will forgive him. Say that 
you will forgive him, 1 shall feel happier if yoii will sav it.” 

“1 can not say it, 1 can not say it,” the old man replied with 
agitation. ”1 have forgiven so much, more than you know of 
more than I can tell you. Forgive I How can we forgive a person 
who doesn’t even desire forgiveness, who goes on sinning ao-ainst 
one, time after time? How oft shall 1 forgive him?” 

^ Agnes looked up quickly; she felt that her uncle was not intend- 
ing to ask the question as Peter asked it, yet surely the reply that 
was made to Peter might also be made to him. “ What was meant ” 
she gently asked, “ by ‘ seventy times seven ’?” 

Joshua hesitated a while. Agnes’ presence, her voice, the fact 
that she was pleading for one who had tried her heart’s streno-th to 
the very uttermost— these things were tending more forcibly than 
he was aware of to prevent that hardening of himself against his 
son that he had meditated. 

“ 1 suppose that forgiveness without limit was meant,” he said, 
thoughtfully. ” But it is a hard saying— until to-night 1 never 
knew ho’w hard. ” 

“ Yet not impossible.” 

“ Perhaps not. If it is not impossible to you it certainlv ought not 
to be to me. But of what use is forgiveness? It is too late. He 
took advantage of me. He stung me into anger, and then took me 
at my word almost before it had left my lips. If he says that 1 
turned him to the door I can only say from the bottom of my heart 
that I believe he wanted tu go. Agnes, where is he gone? Do vou 
think he loill come back? You said just now you thought so; what 
made you say so?” 


A LOST SOX. 


47 


Already change was stealing upon him, resist! essly, pitiful!}'. 
His SOD had had temptations, unusual temptations, he acknowl- 
edged to himself; and perhaps there were others who had been more 
to blame than he had been. He could not talk to Agnes of Mrs. 
Talbot, but he thought about her a good deal; and knowing no 
other cause of Julian’s conduct this "evening he attributed ail to 
her. The boy was infatuated, he could in a measure understand 
that, he could even understand that such an infatuation should for 
a time seem stronger than the purer and holier and more natural 
love that ought to have been all-sufficient for him, that doubtless 
would have been sufficient but for the wiles and art of a woman 
w’ho could find no more congenial pastime than trifling with human 
aflection. 

Joshua Serlcote was not far from the truth here; he saw further 
and more clearly than Julian himself had seen. 

Of late, as we know, other troubles had beset Julian, beset him 
so grievously that his love for Agnes, his foolish and absurd fancy 
lor Helena Talbot, had alike remained in abeyance. The latter had 
flared up a little wildly now and then, more especially in Mis. 
Talbot’s presence. There had been something about lier conde- 
scension that touched more than his vanity; and more than his 
vanity had been wounded by that change in her on the evening 
when Dr. Sargent so unexpectedly came upon the scene. He had 
not seen her since—hardly a week had passed— but he had not 
troubled himself about her so much as might have been expected. 
He had surprised himself in this— what caj'acity he had for suffer- 
ing, and it was not a little, had been claimed by other and more 
momentous matters. 

Of all this Agnes knew nothing. She could have borne to know 
better than she bore the conjecture. The hints that Julian had 
dropped were very pregnant for her, and afforded a vast field for 
sad imagining. Let it be remembered tnat she was only a woman, 
and a very young one, and that her experience of life had been of 
the simplest. She was not even “ clever,'’ in the modern sense of 
the word. Girls of her age sometimes startle one nowadays with 
their gifts of speculation, their large tolerance, tbeir knowledge of 
the world and its ways, and their surface acquaintance with the 
cheaper philosophies; but Agnes had not reached even the first 
stage of “emancipation.” For her sin was sin, and sorrow was 
sorrow, and love was love. Life seemed to be made up of these 
three things, and they were so interwoven with each other now as 
to appear almost one. She sat there silently at her uncle’s feet, 
thinking, wondering, yearning, suffering— suffering, only God knew 
how' intensely. She could make no cry, not even a secret one for 
ner own relief. It was not resignation that was in her soul, that 
she knew; resignation might come later. At present nothing save 
this dtter aching silence seemed in any way possible. 


48 


A LOST SON. 


CHAPTER IX. 

BELLS AT MIDNIGHT. 

“ There’s naught so monstrous hut the mind of man, 

In some conditions, may be brought to approve; 

Theft, sacrilege, treason, and parricide, 

When flattering opportunity enticed, 

And desperation drove, have been committed 
By those who once would start to hear them named.” 

If 1 were a clever modern medical man, and engaged to give evi- 
dence on behalf of Julian Serlcote, 1 could — 1 have no hesitation in 
saying it— invent yet another new mental disease, bestow a scien- 
tific-sounding name upon it, and finally state the rationale of the 
case in such plausible language that not even the Home Secretary 
should be able to resist conviction.. 

If there could be any doubt of Julian’s sanity on that Christmas 
Eve let him have the benefit of the doubt, and think pityingly of 
the ignorance that permitted him, that permits so many thousands 
of others, to 

“ Confuse the chemic labor of their blood ” 

with stimulants of unknown composition. Be it remembered that 
his wines had not been chosen from a carefully-slocked cellar, but 
supplied to him from the bar of a country inn, the landlord of the 
said inn not being noted for his skill or taste in such matters. In 
the present state of physiology it would be difficult to say exactly 
what amount of confusion of nerve and brain may be induced by 
the perpetual presence in the veins of such powerful irritants as are 
nowadays used in adulteration —acts of parliament notwithstand- 
ing. Whether this mode of accounting for the utter derangement 
of thought and life which had driven Julian Serlcote to his ruin be 
tenable or not, need not be discussed here; we have only to do with 
the sad fact that he had been brought to rum. 

He was afflicted and distressed in mind, body, and estate; and 
where to turn in his distress he knew not— nay, he hardly cared to 
know. 

Of course it was not in that first moment after he left his father’s 
house that he knew the full meaning of what he had done; yet the 
moment was painful enough in its way. 

It could not be said that he was penniless, he had half-a-crown 
in his pocket, enough to justify him in entering once more the 
hospitable doors of the Westminster, and calling for half a pint of 
sherry. He knew it was a reckless act, tut his mood was much 
too reckless for acts of any other kind. 

The first effect of the stimulant was to make him feel calmer, 
somewhat more capable of clear and steady thought. He decided 
that he would first go up to the Grove and say “ good-by ” to Mrs. 
Talbot; then he would call at Whitehouse’s and borrow enough 
mone}^ to pay his fare to London, not saying where he was going. 
The night train stopped at Elmthorpe junction for a few minutes 


A LOST SOI^-. 49 

some time about two o’clock in the morning; he Would have plenty 
ot time to walk over atter midnight. 

His plans went no further than that; but it was a lelief to him 
that the next step was plain before him; it was more than a relief 
that that next step should lead to Mrs. Talbot’s. 

The drawing-room window was close to the front door. She was 
singing in that pathetic voice of hers, and it seemed even more 
pathetic than usual. The old spell stole over him, irresistibly, in- 
comprehensibl3^ Y/as she alone? he wondered, as he went in with 
a certain trembling about the heart. The light dazzled him for a 
moment after the intense darkness of the world outside. The maid 
opened the door so gently that Mrs. Talbot was not aware of Julian’s 
entrance. There was no one else in the room. She was seated at the 
piano singing softly, 

“ Return, return! my spirit yearns for thine; 

Return, and tell me that thou still art mine 1” 

She did not start nor blush when Julian moved forward; she only 
rose and greeted him quietly, but her beautiful eyes were suffused 
with tears — this he saw with a distress that made him forget his 
own distresses. Her song was still in his ear. There must have 
been meaning in it for her, and not for her only. Whose return 
had she been yearning for with such cruel yearning as this? He 
dared not think it was his own; he could not bear to think that it 
was another’s. 

These and other thoughts flashed vaguely through his brain, and 
he stood there silently holding her hand. She did not withdraw it. 
Her face was a little averted, her tears dropped slowly. Julian 
did not know that crying was one of the sweets of her existence, 
that she could sit down and play and sing and weep whenever life 
offered nothing more scenic in the way of emotion. It was all real 
to him, intensely real this evening. He was already less master of 
himself than he had been a quarter of an hour before. 

What is it?” he said, in a tender tone, and still standing there 
by her in an attitude of tenderness. ” Has anything troubled you?” 

” Troubled me?” she exclaimed, sinking g^racefully into a chair, 
and not unmindful of the effect of the floating folds of her dress. 
“ Everything troubles me that disturbs my calmness. 1 have no 
happiness in life; 1 desire none. All I ask is peace, peace with 
neither pain nor pleasure in it. It is not much to ask. AYhy is it 
that one may not have it?” 

“ Are you quite sure that you do not desire happiness?” Julian 
asked, tremulously, disregarding her question. He drew his chair 
nearer to hers as he spoke, with a decisive movement. “ Were you 
not wishing for something when 1 came in? If you had not meant 
the words you were singing they would not have moved you thus.” 

“ Probably not,” she said, with some confusion. She was drying 
her tears with an exquisite lace handkerchief, and a faint blush was 
rising to her face, ” Quite probably not. One does not always 
know what is in one’s own heart. Sometimes other people’s words 
seem to find things there that startle one’s self.” 

Julian was listening keenly enough, but he made no reply. It 
could hardly be said that he was thinking; it was not thought that 


50 


A LOST SOlf. 


■was taiung possession of liim, confusing his brain, beightenine tbe 
spell of that strange infatuation that bad so long darkened bis un- 
derstanding. To himself it seemed as if a sudden blinding lii^bt 
bad fallen upon that gloomy prospect of bis, a light that be milbt 
toward^^r ^ courageous enough to look 


‘ No, one does not always know what is in one’s heart ” be said 
speaking with much embarrassment. “ But I know of something 
that has been m mine along time, something that 1 have kept back 
and tried to put away from me "with all the strength 1 had; but it 
was no use. 1 have never had any hope. 1 never should have had 
any if i had not come in to-night.’’ 

Then he paused a litlle. though Mrs. Talbot and he had been 
friends so long, and although their friendship had had a certain dan- 
gerous flavor of tenderness in it, he yet felt a difficulty in putting 
this new hope of his into words. It was rather cruel, too, that iust 
at this moment the remembrance of his last visit, and its termina- 
tion, should flash suddenly upon him, impeding his utterance but 
Strengthening his wish. He would have an answer; he must have 
one now that he had gone so far; but the moment was far from 
oeing so ecstatic as such moments are supposed to be. 

He had a vague desire that Mrs. Talbot would help him; but she 
seem^ ernbarrassed herself. She did not speak, but she looked at 
him, first in some surprise, then in a helpless, appealing w«iy, as if 
she would implore him to be silent. ^ 

But of course silence was not possible, nor did Julian wish that 
It were. 

1 know that it is presumption on my part,” he began again 
more tremulously than before, “ aud 1 have no excuse to ofler for 

toam ^ longer than you 

He ^uis looking at her eagerly as he spoke; looking more passion- 
ate and tender things than it was possible to utter. As he concluded 
he again took her hand in his. Bhe did not refuse to let it lie there 
but she gave a nervous litlle start, as if she were only iust awaking 
from a reverie. ® 


T \Yhat are you saying?” she exclaimed. 

Love! Are you talking of love to me? Ho you forget yourself^ 
Or IS It possible that you are insulting me? Are you not engaged 
to your cousin? Of what are you thinking?” 

thinking of you, and of my love for you,” he said, firmV 

My engagement with my cousin is broken oft; that can not come 
between us. Tell me— tell me at once that nothing else can.” 

There was a certain vehemence in his tone, born quite as much 
of his desperate situation as of the intensity of his aftection. 

Mrs. Talbot had covered her face with her hands, and hot genuine 
tears were streaming through hei fingers. Julian spoke soothingly 
caressingly, but he could draw no word from her uutil she had re- 
covered herself somewhat. He never knew the meaning of those 
^ars, he never guessed the struggle that had taken place between 
Helena Talbot's heart and brain during those few minutes that 
seemed an hour. 

“ You foolish, foolish boy!” she said, at last, ” How can you be 


A LOST SOX. 


51 


so thoughtless as to make fresh trouble both for yourself and me? 
Sorrow is ue^ to 3 'ou, though; 1 dare say it will be a kind of lux- 
ury. But, alas-! alas! it is a luxury ^ ' which 1 have had enough. 
How could you, how could j^ou bring' me more?” 

“ Why do you say that?” Julian asked, his hope already be- 
ginning to fail, “is it that you do not care tor me! 1 — i have 
thought that you did. And you said only a little while ago that 
people often had feeling in their hearts that they did not expect. 
You have been my friend so long— surely I am something to you?” 

” Something? Yes, you are something— much, perhaps more than 
older and wiser friends would exactly approve; but — ft is the great- 
est kindness 1 can do you to tell you the truth— we can never be 
more than friends.” 

Poor Julian ! The tragic speech -was altogether tragic to him. 

“Don’t say that! don’t say that!” he cried, in a kind of weak 
abandonment of himself. “1 am in trouble — in great trouble; 1 
have not a friend in the world; 1 have not even a home! If not for 
love’s sake, then for pity’s sake think twice before you send me 
away to night hopeless!” 

In the midst of Helena Talbot’s surprise came the contemptuous 
thought, “How young he is.” 

Yes, very young to dream of moving a woman like that by con- 
fession of trouble and poverty! 

She did not even inquire into the details of his trouble— nay, she 
even shrunk from knowing them. She suddenly became conscious 
that the scene had been prolonged beyond the limits of expediency. 

*• Perhaps 1 ought to have told you in the beginning,” she said, 
turning away as if to hide a blush, “ but these things come upon 
one so suddenly, and— and it is not pleasant for me to tell you my- 
self— 1 meant Dr. Sargent to tell you as soon as we told any one — 
you will come to see us in our new home?— we are going to live at 
Gray ford Mount.” 

Julian Serlcote rose to his feet involuntarily. For some time he 
stood there, with one hand on the table and his head lowered a little. 
He did not speak or stir, but a curious change passed over his face. 
Long afterward he remembered that his first coherent thought was 
of the utter hopelessness and desperateness of his circumstances.. 

The thoughts— if such they could be called— that followed later 
were less intelligible even to himself. It is probable that he did not 
stand there five minutes, but the history of each minute, could he 
have written it, would have resembled the history of each hour of 
a revolution. 

Whatever may have been the nature of his affection or infatuation 
for Mrs. Talbot, he knew certainly that it came to an end even as 
he stood there in her presence. If she could have known it she 
could not have been more astonished than he was. 

The poetB have written much on the sudden birth of love, we 
have heard, but little of its sudden death. Some of them— Byron 
for instance— have doubted whether such sudden death w^ere pos- 
sible. It may be granted that Byron was an authority on such sub- 
jects, but there are various chords of human emotion that he never 
swept. The instantaneous and unexpected death of love is less 
frequent but not less possible than its instantaneous birth. 


52 


A LOST SOiT. 


A flash of event, betraying, were it but for a second, the double 
nature ol a man or woman, revealing but in a single word unsus- 
pected undercurrents of meaner and smaller mindedness, may be as 
quickly fatal to love as ever lightning was to life. 

Julian uttered no word of reproach, he was too much confused 
to be able to adjust for himself the knowledge of Mrs. Talbot’s real 
character that had come to him so suddenly and painfully. More 
had been revealed than he could grasp. Afterward, when he went 
oyer the whole of the time that he had known her, it seemed to 
him that his faith in womanhood was shaken forever. 

But even as he stood in her drawing-room, transfixed with sur- 
prise, his feeling res Dived itself into anger, and something that was 
almost repugnance. Why had she let him betray himself so far? 
Had she anticipated pleasure in his shame and disappointment? 

He could not control himself sufficiently to part from her with 
any courtesies. He was wounded and stung bejmnd endurance. 
An}" one seeing him fly down the avenue, with his hat in his hand, 
might have been forgiven for doubling his sanity. 

It was a dark, moonless night; chill winds swept over the rising 
land where the Grove houses stood, looming up at intervals from the 
stunted, leafless trees; heavy clouds were sailing over the stars; 
there were lights in the windows here and there. At a turn in the 
lane the more numerous lights of the town caught Julian’s eye. giv- 
ing him a sense of the nearness of humanity that he could not bear 
just then. He turned back and went along a narrow field path that 
led into the open country. He might not escape from himself, but 
his instinct to escape from all besides was irresistible. 

iNo; he might not escape from himself— from the cruel net- work 
of evil that he had woven about his own feet. 

^ He went on, desperate, and unconsciously nursing his despera- 
tion. He could not thinK, he could not realize his position; he 
could not feel. He was simply suffering from the sense of sufi:er- 
ing. If that terrible fortune of his had been reversed he would still 
tor some time have been dominated by the oppression that was upon 
him. 

But no such reverse was possible. This he knew, and it was 
almost all that he did know. He had forgotten his plans; he knew" 
nothing of the lapse of time. The night went on, the stars shone 
down upon him more clearly, the wind died away, and still Julian 
JSerlcote was wandering alone in the fields beyond Lyme-St. -Mary’s. 

After a time the recollection came back upon him of wffiat he 
had intended to do. He shivered. It was like a blast of keener 
air. He retraced his steps, and turned into a road that led to 'White- 
house’s. 

He was soon there, but there was no sign of life about the place. 
The stillness, the death-like gloom of his friend’s closed doors, was 
like another chill. He moved aw^ay slowly and altogether aim- 
lessly. He might not go far ; he might come back ; he had no defi- 
nite purpose as he went slowiy tow-ard the town. 

Suddenly— he never forgot that moment — the bells from the old 
church tower rang cut through the midnight air. 

^ He was not far from the church, and every stroke fell upon the 
silence with a power that was startling and terrible. Julian re- 


A LOST SOK. 


53 


membered that it was Christmas Eve, that the chimes were in- 
tended for sounds ot most ioyous and holy significance; he even 
stopped and tried to listen ’for any higher meaning they might 
r have but it was not for him. The bells were old and grand and 
true;’ there had been times when their music had seemed to him 
something glad and exulting beyond all other music. ^ Quiet Sun- 
day mormng chimes, mairiage bells, other lestival chimes that had 
rung out sweetly and merrily from the ancient tower, came back 
upon him, came mingled with the strange heavy clanging discord 
that seemed to strike his every nerve with a sense of fear and horror. 

He had heard funeral bells, muffled peals ot sorrow and sadness, 
but they had never filled him with such dread as this dread that 
stole over him as he listened now. Eor the first time his despair 
seemed to come home to him. He sunk down on a doorstep not a 
hundred yards from his father’s house, and he sat on that doorstep 
and cried— wept such tears as a human being only can weep who 
has forsaken God and bereaved himself of the sympathy of man. 


CHAPTER X. 

AN OLD man’s SOKROW AND A YOUNG MAN’S SIN. 

Blot out this name, then— record one lost soul more. 

One task more declined, one more footpath imtrod; 

One more triumph for devils, and sorrow for angels, 

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God. 

^ Robert Browning. 

That Christmas Eve was a sorrowful one for others besides 

tJulian Serlcote. n . , 

The chimes, falling upon Agnes’ ear, caused a pang well-nigh as 
bitter in its way as the pang that struck through J ulian’s heart as he 
stood in the cold, dark street, friendless and homeless and penniless. 
Her sorrow was not unmixed with self-reproach. What earthly sor- 
row ever is? Failings, -errors, deficiencies came back upon her as 
she sat there; opportunities lost, perhaps forever, she said to herself, 
realizing the idea with pain of unutterable force. 

She could sit still no longer, but began to pace up and dow n her 
room rapidly. Her hands were crossed tightly before her ; her beau- 
tiful hair, dark, waving, abundant, fell over her white gown; her 
upturned face was tearless, intense, weighted as if with years of 

grief and yearning. ^ ^ . 4 

The feeling that her sorrow was chastisement for her sin was not 
the most intolerable feeling that she had. She could have bowed 
herself to that with submission. Her grief went further, went out 
from her own heart and life to the wrecked life ot another. What 
might not she have done? or rather, what might not God have 
done’ She had prayed, but how? As Jacob prayed at Peniel, or 
as the woman of Canaan prayed by the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 

Her faith had declined; this she knew as she remembered how 
week by week and month by month, as Julian’s steady deterioration 
had forced itself upon her notice, she had come to feel despondent, 
if not houeless. Could God work a miracle? She had half shud- 
dered as the question had involuntarily crossed her mind, as such 


54 


A LOST SOiT. 


questions will. Beyond doubt, He could work any miracle He 
might see fit to work, even to the changing of the very foundations 
upon which a human character had been built. It was not impos- 
sible that He should do it yet. 


‘ ‘ O for a love like Daniel’s now, 

To wing to heaven but one short prayer.” 


So she cried aloud in that midnight agony of hers, and her crying 
did not end there. 

She knew not how it ended, when the sense that it had been heard 
came, to her; she only knew that it came softly, and imperceptibly, 
and with unspeakable sweetness. 

Jt was as the folding ot an angeks wing about her head; shutting 
out fear and pain and visions of evil; enveloping her in its atmos- 
phere ot utter peace. 

The peace that passeth all understanding. Even in that hour of 
her trial this peace was hers. Ko human voice sung the glad tidings 
in her ear, no illuminated scroll was unrolled before her e3^es. 

Peace on earth for those who will accept it; good will to all, 
whether they respond to it or no. That was the message ot the 



]^ot freedom from sorrow, from care, from trial; nowhere is such 
a promise made to man: but this promise is given firmly: “Your 
sorrow shall be turned into joy.” 

Y^our sorrow itself made an occasion of joy to you, if you will 
have it so — your saddest bereavement, your most terrible poverty, 
your longest loneliness, age, and even your deepest disgrace. 

He who was despised and rejected of men, that jMan of Sorrow 
who was so acquainted with grief, has only one motive in subject- 
ing us to the same training as He chose for Himself. He who’was 
made perfect through sufferings will have us perfect through suffer- 
ings also. 

Stroke upon stroke, loss upon loss, denial upon denial, till the 
human heart in us stands still as much in amazement as in sorrow. 

We have ceased to ask whyf long ago — we have ceased to ques- 
tion at all. What strength we have is all laid down in endurance. 
Vet God stays not His uplifted hand. His purpose is not yet ac- 
complished, 

^ “ Though He slay me, yet will 1 trust in Him ’’—there have been 
times in the lives of some of us not to be forgotten while memory 
remains, when we have been brought near enough to the foot of the 
Cross to utter this in all sincerity. 

“ Though he slay me."' 

Could we have said with equal emphasis, “ Though he slay my 
loill ” f 

That man who can offer up his own will— the desire, the hope, 
the solace that is dear to him as existence itself, that is woven with 
his very being— who can offer this as Abraham ottered Isaac, not 
looking with longing eyes toward the thicket, watching for any sub- 
stitute caught there, that man is not far from the peace that passeth 
knowledge. 

Such a state is not arrived at suddenly. There may be a moment 
when the germ of faith shall seem first to awaken the soul; but it 


A LOST SOX. 65 

awaits development, it needs storm and rain and patient culture: 
then God will not tail to provide. 

******* 

Joshua Serlcote went down-stairs earlier than usual on the morn- 
ing ot that Christmas Day. He had had a restless, fevered nighi, and 
now he felt exhausted, irritable, lie would not allow himself to 
think of that Absalom of his, he W'ould never deliberately think of 
him again. All the same, it was quite useless trying to think of 
. anything else. 

Joshua was very methodical in his habits. He turned along the 
narrow bare passages that were still in semi-darkness. He could 
only just discern his way to the door that led into the shop, a door 
that was half of glass, and had a faded curtain behind it. The key 
was in his right hand, and his left hand was upon the lock; but 
the door yielded almost before he touched it; it had been standing 
ajar. 

A faint sickening sensation passed over the old man; for a 
moment he could neither move nor think. He had intended to go 
for his letters which w^ere in a box at the back of the street door of 
the shop: but he forgot all about the letters. When he had recov- 
ered himself he turned into the kitchen. 

There was only Hannah there on her knees before the kitchen fire. 
A candle was on the table: Joshua was taking it tremulously. 

“ Are you ill, sir?” asked the girl, rising to her feet with quick 
surprise and sympathy. 

” No, no, it’s nothing, nothing at all. But come and hold the 
candle for me. ” 

Just at that moment Martin came down, dressed with extra care 
as befitted Christmas Day ; but there was no festive expression on his 
face.. 

” A happy Christmas, uncle,” he said, holding out his hand, but 
bis breathing seemed to stop suddenly, almost before the words 
were out of his mouth. ‘‘What is it? What is the matter?” he 
asked, turning almost as pale as Joshua himself. 

‘‘ I— 1 don’t know,” said the old man, holding up the candle so 
that its light fell upon the glass door. ” Look there. Marlin, look 
at that. 1 found that door open, just as it is now.” 

Then he stooped; Marlin was taking a key from the door. 

‘‘ Julian’s key,” he said, holding it up, and speaking in a sooth- 
ing explanatory way. Martin did not know all that had taken place 
on the previous evening. 

What Joshua Serlcote did after that he seemed to do resolutely 
but altogether mechanically. He dismissed the servant, he bade 
Martin follow him into the shop, then he set himself to the task ot 
discovering the worst. 

He glanced at the safes first ; they were both exactly as he had 
left them on the previous evening. The keys were in his own hand. 

The desk and everything about it was undisturbed. 

Then he walked down the long, dark shop; his step was less 
stately than usual and his bearing less erect; but there was deter- 
mination in his every movement, and in every line of his face. 

He did not falter even when he came to the counter near the door. 


56 


A LOST SOJT. 


Two small glass-covered cases, lined with white satin, were stand- 
ing there empty. 

Joshua had been the last to leave the shop on the previous even- 
ing. He had an amusing little habit of going round the place and 
touching every precious or super -satisfactory article with gentle, 
caressing fingers, exactly as one would touch the cheek of an un- 
usually lovely child. Joshua Serlcote patting the sides of a silver 
tea-pot with an affectionate smile was one of the numerous things 
that invariably proved irresistible to Ben Chadwick. Ben had not 
been present on Christmas Eve when Joshua had lingered lovingly 
beside these cases; they had contained eleven watches, each one of 
more than ordinary beauty and value. 

Martin moved gently back to the glass door, closed it, and came 
again to his uncle’s side, standing a little nearer to him than before. 

“ Tell Hannah 1 want her here immediately,” said the old man, 
hoarsely, and without looking up. 

Martin hesitated. ‘‘Will ic be wise, uncle?” he said, speaking 
with all possible gentleness. ‘‘ Things may clear themselves up in a 
day or two.” 

“Will you do as you are ordered, sir, or will you not?” 

Martin did as he was ordered, and Hannah appeared on the strange 
dimly-lighted scene quickly. Her natural curiosity seemed to be 
overawed by some influence not yet explained. 

Joshua moved the candle so that it fell full upon her face. 

“ These premises ha\e been entered during the night,” he began, 
with a certain grandiloquence: “ 1 have ever}^ reason to believe that 
they have been entered by my son Julian. 1 wish to know whether 
you can throw any light upon the matter. In the first place, were 
the doors and windows at the back of the house all fastened as usual 
when you came down this morning?” 

“ Exactly as usual, sir; but — ” 

“Wait, wait! Speak only when you are spoken to. Did you 
hear any noise during the night?” 

“ 1 never heard nothing after 1 went upstairs, sir.” 

“ What time was it when you went upstairs?” 

Hannah blushed and hesitated. “ It was going on for four O'clock 
this morning,” she said, at last, speaking out boldly; “an’ 1 
shouldn’t ha’ been up that time of the mornin’ if I’d been allowed 
proper time for sewin’ as other servants is.” 

“Stop, stop, my good womani” said Joshua; “ 1 have nothing 
to do tvith that now. Did you see or hear anything of any one be- 
fore you went to bed?” 

“ Tes; 1 both saw and heard Mr. Julian.” 

“ What time was it?” 

“About three.” 

“ Did you let him in?” 

“Yes: 1 let him in— an’ 1 let him out again.” 

“ How long was he in?” 

“ Kot more than ten minutes, an’ he hardly spoke. He went into 
the shop, but he hardly made no noise at all. He never so much as 
said ’at 1 wasn’t to tell nobody he’d been in.” 

“ That will do, that will do! You can go back to your work 
now.” 


A LOST SON. 57 

“ Give her a word of caution about speaking of this/’ implored 
JViartin, in a whisper. 

“ Not a syllable, not a syllable!” said the old man, sternl3^ 

He would make no hue and cry, this he had decided already; but 
neither would he so much as raise his finger to insure concealment. 
A little more or less scandal could make no matter now. it the 
thing could have been managed so that no one should have known 
save himself, who had been sinned against, and his son, who had 
sinned, it would have made no difterence. It would be no more pos- 
sible tor Julian to take his position again than it would have been 
possible tor him to come back from death to life. 

Poor old Serlcote! It was as if an earthquake had opened the 
ground under his feet; as if the walls that made his house and home 
were tottering; as it only ruin and degradation could be the lot ot 
him and his forever. 

He sat with his bowed head between his hands, trying to soothe 
its hot aching by pressure, trying to relieve his troubled senses by 
rocking himself slowly to and fro. Martin had wisely left him alone 
with his great grief. Daylight came slowly through the wide, low 
window behind him, the candle burnt down into its socket, sounds 
reached him from the house and from the street, still it was a hard 
matter for him to raise that white head of his and face life again, 
knowing so certainly as he did that he could never face it as he had 
done before. 

Martin’s trouble was great, but it was not as his uncle's trouble. 
He was younger and more sanguine; besides, he had known so 
much more of Julian’s desperate position that he was less surprised. 
His one present idea was secrecy. If his uncle would do nothing to 
insure that, then he would do all that could be done himself. 

Hannah was easily bribed. The girl was in tears w^hen Martin 
went into the kitchen, and laboring under an uneasy sense ot error 
which she was altogether unable to define. She gave a fuller ac- 
count to Martin than Joshua had perinitled her to give, but she had 
no new’ light to throw upon the matter. Mr. Julian had startled her 
by tapping at the kitchen window; she recognized his voice when 
he spoke, and opened the door for him without hesitation, suppos- 
ing that he had forgotten his latch-key. She had not known till 
then that Mr. Serlcote had barred the side- door when he went to 
bed. 

Ko, she would not tell any one, she said, closing her hand with a 
good deal of reluctance o^^er the sovereign that Martin insisted on 
placing there; and as for telling Miss Dyne, that she would never 
have dreamed of. Martin was very emphatic here, and repeated his 
injunction with a certain amount of embarrassment. 

After a time he went back to the shop to plead with his uncle, and 
his effort was not altogether wasted. Joshua agreed that it w^ould 
avail little to plunge the w^hole household into the depths of a misery 
that they could barely understand, and could in no wise alleviate. 
Martin quickly put the empty cases out ot sight, and persuaded his 
uncle to take his place at the breakfast-iable as usual. It w^as better 
that he did so; but the trouble that had fallen upon him passed 
through the others as an electric shock passes. They dared not ask 


A LOST SON. 


58 

what new thins; had happened, nor could they talk of indifferent 
things. Altogether that Christmas Day was as the day w'heu one 
lies newly de^d in a house. 

By degrees it came to be understood, even by the little ones, and 
without any openly uttered word, that Julian's return was not to be 
looked for. Joshua insisted that the children’s party, for which the 
invitations had already been issued, should be given as originally 
planned, on the day after Christmas Day. He even forced himself 
to be present, and strove to the uttermost to put away from him 
that dark shadow that had fallen into his life. INo one knew the 
effort It cost him, because it was felt that such an occasion would 
have been rather trying to him in his brightest days. His smile had 
never been a happy one, nor his manner easy. If there w^as more 
pathos in his endeavor to seem easy and happy it is probable that 
no one noticed it save his niece, who was herself under the necessity 
of making a certain amount of effort. The need for it passed away 
as the evening went on. Her nature was one of those whose dark- 
est troubles are lightened by children’s mirth. 

Children of all ages and both sexes were there, bright merry little 
things, whose untroubled faces and free glad luughter came into 
that sad household like a breeze from the hills into a close hot city, 
or like a flood of sunshine into a darkened room. Fanny and Kel- 
lie, dressed in new white muslin dresses and crimson sashes, gave 
themselves up at once and without reserve; Sam, who was timid 
and shy, yielded more slowly. John, who was growing tall, and 
had been promoted that very evening to a dress-coat and a white tie, 
looked grave and conscious, but it might be that his promotion w^as 
slightly oppressive. Elizabeth’s pleasant homely face showed no 
sign of sadness; she rustled awkwardly about in her mauve silk 
dress, which was amply trimmed with wdiite imitation lace, but her 
smiles were not so unforced as they seemed to be. Mrs. Serlcote 
was the only fretful person present. She resented all attention, 
more especially the attention of her husband and Agnes. She had 
a very firm impression that her son had not been dealt with fairly. 

The giving out of the presents from the Christmas-tree by lottery 
was the grand feature of the evening. The presiding genius seemed 
to be in a perverse mood. Joshua received a tiny silver thimble, 
Elizabeth a walking-stick, and Martin Brooke a doll dressed as a 
fairy. Then, when the laughter was loudest, a heavy distressing sob 
was heard, a sob that hushed every other sound at once, and drew 
every eye to the shadowy corner behind the tree. There was only 
little Kellie there. Kellie who had been the biightest and merriest 
of the whole party. It was all so new to her, so delightful, so 
different from all the other days of her prosaic little life, that it was 
not to be wondered at that she had forgotten the existence of any 
such thing as sorrow. She might have continued to forget, but her 
eyes had fallen on a cigar-case that she had bought with her own 
money. It had not been put into the lottery; she had wished to be 
quite sure of its reaching the person tor whom it was designed. In 
her excitement she had glanced round the room for him; then she 
had remembered, and the remembrance was more than she was able 
to bear. ^ . 

“Oh, what is it? What is the matter?'’ came from all sides. 


A LOST SOif. 59 

The child in her distress only sobbed out quietly, “ Julian would 
have liked it so.’' 

Agnes drew the little thing to her side comtortingly, and Martin, 
with quiet prescience, made an attempt to go on at once with the 
giving out of the presents. But this was not to be. Emotion had 
grasped Joshua Serlcote with a stronger grasp than he was able to 
shake oft. He had turned while, or rather gray, and he was trem- 
bling visibly. For a moment he could not speak, but he was con- 
scious that every one was watching him, wondering at his weakness. 
And the consciousness lent to his emotion the strength and appear- 
ance of anger. 

“Ellen,'’ he said, speaking sharply and hardly. “Ellen, leave 
the room at once; but before you go hear this, and let every one 
else hear it.” Then he stopped and drew himselt up to his full 
height, and raised his hand as if in denunciation. “ Let every one 
present listen to this, and remember it; that 1 forbid any human be- 
ing ever to mention my son Julian’s name to me again. 1 disown 
him. From this hour 1 cast him off forever.” 

More than this the old man might have said, but Agnes laid her 
hand gently on his outstretched arm. He turned, and saw the sad 
pleading look that was j^et lull of sweetness, and his anger seemed 
to die out as suddenly as it had arisen. Kellie was going sobbing 
from the room, but he brought her back, and w^ent out himself 
instead. 

Elizabeth, Agnes, and Martin made every possible effort to re- 
store the easy, natural mirth of the previous houis, but their success 
was only partial. Some of the elder children never forgot the con- 
sternation that seized them that evening when Joshua Serlcole thus 
publicly cast oft his son, the young man w’hom they had looked up 
to with such keen and unfailing admiration. It touched them as, 
generally speaking, only personal things touch the very young. 

Meanwhile Joshua Serlcotehad shut himself up in his own room, 
and walking up and down there in the darkness, twining his hands 
tightly together, uttering broken words, fighting against the strange 
sorrow that had come upon him with all the strength he had. He 
went back over the past, over the days of Julian’s childhood and 
boyhood and his early youth; he remembered his own kindnesses 
and indulgences; he recalled things that he had done many a time 
with outward bad grace because they were so diiectly opposed to all 
his theories, but in which he had found compensating internal sat- 
isfaction because they were done for Julian. What had he not done 
for him? He had given him superior advantages in the way of 
education; year after year he had increased his allowance; and he 
had sent him abroad at great expense and inconvenience to himself. 
Since his return had he not treated him more like a superior than 
like a son? Julian’s time had been his own, his expenditure had 
seemed almost unlimited, and when reproof and remonstrance be- 
came duties that could no longer be delayed, had he not tried to 
the uttermost to prevent himself from using any word that should 
even savor of harshness? As to forgiveness, he had been impelled 
to forgive him even when he. had half scorned himself for his own 
w’eakness in so doing. A word, a look of Julian’s had at any time 
been sufficient to neutralize the secretly nourished soreness and re- 


60 


A LOST SOK. 


sentment of days. “ But now— now it is all over, llieold re an said 
to hiinselt, sinkins: into a chair. Then the tears began to fall, hot, 
bitter tears that dropped slowly over his withered face, and two 
tremulous hands were stretched out imploringly in the darkness. 
“ Julian, Julian,” the old man said aloud, “ 1 could have borne it 
it 1 had not loved you so. 1 could have borne even this if 1 had not 
loved you.” 

******* 

After that day a calmer sadness settled down upon the household 
in the Corn Market. The elder membeis felt that there was some 
mystery, that something had come to light after Julian’s departure 
of which his father and Martin knew, but there seemed to be a tacit 
agreement among them that it was better to let il remain a mystery 
so far as themselves were concerned. It was very pathetic the way 
they dreaded beintr compelled to think with anything but tenderness 
and aftection of that wandering prodigal of theirs. They only spoke 
of him at night round the fire, when tears might fall unobserved, 
and whispers be heard without efl;ort. Agnes was the only hopeful 
one among them. Her hope was distant and undefined, but it was 
not the less a strong hope. 

“ He will come back,” she said, gently, ” and his father will re- 
ceive him.” 

The others listened doubtfully, almost despairingly. This was 
especially true of Martin. He could not help looking wistfully at 
Agnes as she spoke, and wondering what she would think and feel 
if she knew all. He did not know that he himself did not know 
all, that J ulian’s debts, strange, inexplicable debts, were daily com- 
ing to his father’s knowledge. The old man paid them quickly and 
secretly and silently, hut, unknown to himself, his heart was hard- 
ening rapidly in the process. That matter of Grant & Greenlow’s 
was as keen a blow in its way as was the more direct robbery of 
Christmas Eve. The knowledge that Julian had been willfully and 
recklessly deceiving him almost ever since his return from the Con- 
tinent was almost unbearable to a man so stern-principled as Joshua 
Serlcote. He could not forget, he could not forgive. He had no 
wish to forgive now that all tenderness was dead or dying within 
him. Ho one, not even his own wife, had dared to mention his 
son’s name to him since that sad evening. It was seen by every one 
that he was growing rapidly older and sterner and more silent. The 
few people who knew his sorrow and sympathized with it yet 
avoided the man who sorrowed so hardly and proudly. 

Of course the tragic occurrences of that Christmas night 'were 
soon known in one form or another to every dweller in that little 
town of Lyme-St. -Mary’s, save and except only the dwellers under 
Joshua Serlcote’s own roof. No two accounts agreed as to detail. 
Circumstances were added, pathetic, romantic, picturesque, with 
wonderful ingenuity, and all more or less betraying the almost uni- 
versal sympathy with Julian. His father’s will had driven him to 
consent to an uncongenial engagement; his father’s penuriousness 
had driven him into debt; finally, his father’s well-known pride and 
sternness had driven him to open rebellion. For weeks little else 
was talked of save Julian Serlcote and his strange disappearance. 
All that was good and amiable in him was recalled and dwelt upon 


A LOST SON*. 


61 


sadly. His geniality, liis unfailing courtesy, his ready good-nature, 
his winning ways, all wwe heightened, exaggerated, until his charac- 
ter became invested with a halo that would certainly never have sur- 
rounded it had he remained in his own place and gone on his own 
downward way by the same paths by which he had been descending 
so long. Those who had been among the first to prophesy his ruin 
were among the last to blame him now that ruin had come. He 
might be as one dead, but there was a feeling in the town of Lyme- 
St. -Mary’s that be would never be as one forgotten. 


CHAPTER XI. 

MARTIN MAKES ANOTHER MISTAKE. 

Love is eternal ! 

Whatever dies, that lives. I feel and know 
It is too great a thing to die. 

Philip Van Artevelde. 

It is often a very perplexing thing to look back upon great sor- 
rows. Sometimes the cause of the grief— the actual thing itself — 
seems to fade away while the sorrow that we spent or wasted upon 
it is with us still —a black heavy memory from which we turn with 
pain. In other instances it is the event that stands out in bold re- 
lief, while the feeling we had concerning it seems to have been tran- 
sient and shallow in proportion. Few of us have any standard by 
which to measure our earthly griefs; or if we hold by the standard 
we are too much weighed down for measurement. Grief is “ her 
own mistress,” and ours. 

“ And shall I take a thing so blind, 

Embrace her as my natural good. 

Or crush her with a vice of blood 
Upon the threshold of the mind?” 

If such crushing were possible, sorrow for some of us would cease 
to be sorrow at all— not tor many though. We are all of us, more 
or less, not only born to trouble, but provided with due capacity for 
trouble, which no amount of crushing will render less keen, less 
constantly alive. Yet no two of us are alike in our capacity for 
sorrow, or in our power for remembering sorrow; and no two sor- 
rows touch us to the same result. Only one thing may be said of 
all alike. If when we walked through the midst of the burning 
fiery furnace One walked with us whose form was like to the Son 
of God, then we may know certainly that we not only ” had no hurt, 
but that that fierce salting by fire was for our healing and blessing- 
yea, for our blessing, though we may seem at first to have hardly 
life left in us tor receiving it. But let us still wait upon God, and 
patiently, if we would yet give Him thanks for the help of His 
countenance. 

Imagine the passing of two years over that house in the Corn 
Market of Lyme- St. -Mary’s— two slow, eventless, silent years that 
seemed as ten even to the elder members of the stricken family; 
strangely stricken they were, and the feeling came out in strange 
ways. Had bereavement by death come to them they would nave 


A LOST SOi^*, 


63 

mourDed as other people of this class mourned, not varying so 
much as an inch in the breath ot a crape fold. But there was no 
established precedent tor behavior in disgrace. They might not put 
the blinds down, nor provide themselves with three graduated suits 
ot mourning, but a certain instinct forbade the usual spring and 
autumn display of carefully-chosen millinery. It a new gown or 
bonnet had to be selected now, the children were made to feel that 
there would be a hind of heartlessness or shamelessness in choosing 
to wear any color but brown or gray. This sense of a new sub- 
duedness, where all had been subdued before, might be very op- 
pressive: but then they knew that they were oppressed— oppressed 
with a sense of open shame that seemed to resolve itself into some- 
thing more and more tangible as the time went on. They could 
never hold up their heads as they had done before, therefore they 
made no effoit to hold them up at all. Friends fell away slowly 
but surely, others grew bolder; even the customers took a new tone, 
and bore themseves more difiidently or more haughtily, according 
to the view^ they took of Joshua Serlcote’s trouble, and the blame 
they imagined must attach to himself. The gloom rested everj^- 
where, and d epened on every occasion. Julian’s name was never 
mentioned: the silence grew longei, and was kept more strictly; but 
it did not fail to make itself felt more impressively. Joshua Serlcote's 
lost son was lost indeed, but not yet was he forgotten. 

He was not forgotten— no, nor was he forgiven, though through 
these two long years the old man had hardly any abiding thought 
save thought ot his absent son, yet never again had any hurst of 
tenderness arrested the hardening of his grief. 

Yes; daily had he grown harder and prouder in his sorrow\ He 
had lived a long life, he had borne the burden and heat of the day 
bravely, but all through there had been the natural human looking- 
for of peace and rest and satisfaction in his old age. The details 
had been arranged, the touches of warmth and color laid before- 
hand. He had encouraged a certain latent cheerfulness about the 
future. It was not strange, now that the future would not bear 
looking into at all, that his disappointment and desolation should 
turn to bitterness within him. 

The memory of Julian held no bitterness for any one save his fa- 
ther. Elizabeth’s grief was simply grief; she had nothing to for- 
give, there had been little to strain’ her blind, strong affection. She 
had never understood all that had happened, she had ref rained from 
trying to understand. Julian had erred, and his error had been so 
severely visited that no chance of turning to better things had been 
given him. He had sinned, but most certainly had he been sinned 
against. Elizabeth was sad, but there was one whose life was more 
saddened still, though perhaps she showed it even less openly. 
Agnes Dyne hardly understood herself in those days. Though 
Julian’s name was never mentioned, though she had never heard 
one word from him nor concerning him, and therefore did not know 
whether he were living or dead, still her mental life had turned so 
ceaselessly toward him that her love had stiengthened day by day. 
She knew that it was quite possible— nay, probable— that she would 
never see him again, that her life would go on growing drearier, 
less hopeful— yes, even less hopeful— than it was now; that all her 


A LOST SOiq’. 


63 


natural, womanly dreams would fade out unfulfilled; yet none of 
Ihe sweetness in her turned to bitterness under the knowledge. She 
was one of the few who seem to learn life’s hardest lesson — submis- 
sion to the will of God— with an ease thnt is perplexins; to those 
who have required stroke upon stroke, and find themselves still 
murmuring under the rod. The years of her life might be long 
and dark and lonely, but she knew that she rright not spend that 
life in idle moaning. She had work enough to do now, she would 
always find work of some kind lying ready to her hand; and if 
while she worked with hand or head her heart kept on beating 
time in this slow, sorrowful way, it was surely for some sufficient 
reason. 

Her external cheerfulness was delusive; especially was it delusive 
to him wdio watched her most closely. Not the minutest change 
passed over the face of Agnes when Martin Brooke was by that he 
did not notice; not the slightest variation came into her voice or 
accent without causing corresponding varying emotion in him. 

Since ihe very first day of Julian’s departure he had consciously 
set himself to be to Agnes as a brother. This he might be; it would 
be a satisfaction to himself; it might be some alleviation to her. It 
was not much he could do, at least it did not seem much to himself, 
but Agnes had come by slow^ degrees to be unceasingly grateful for 
those ceaseless little attentions of which Marlin thought so lightly. 
She made not the smallest effort to hide her gratitude; nay, it was 
a pleasure to her to show how pleased she was. 

Martin still kept that strong check upon himself which had been 
so necessary before; at first lie would not allow himself to dream 
for a moment that it could be less necessary now. But thoughts 
come unallowed, and however strong the will may be to banish 
them, they are apt to leave feelings behind them over which the 
will ha 3 less control. 

It was part of Martin’s duty now to bring the letters from the box 
in the morning. For many months he had looked eagerly for 
Julian’s handwriting, wishing and longing to see it there. Now 
when he detected his own thought it was as if he had detected him- 
self in uttering a falsehood. He was relieved — beyond doubt he was 
relieved when day after day, week after week, the silence remained 
unbroken. He might hate himself for the feeling, but still it was 
there. 

Life was getting more and more intense with him; every meal- 
time was an event, and every evening a strange sweet delirium. 
The power he had over his outward man was remarkable; he could 
control everythinsr but his voice, and he exposed himself seldomer 
than ever to danger here. 

The second winter after Julian’s departure had passed not un- 
happily for him. He had grown more and more necessary to Agnes^ 
comfort, and he could not but perceive it. He it was to whom she 
turned instinctively for the thousand and one little services to be 
rendered in daily life where the means are not limitless and servants 
few. He brought her books from the library; often she left the 
choice to him; they read them togetner, discussed them, and dis- 
covered strange similarities of taste and opinion. 'And now that 
the spring had come and the days were longer, Martin had remem- 


64 


A LOST SOX. 


bered her love for wild flowers; and three or four times a week he 
came in with both hands filled with fresh, sweei, graceful things 
that roused Ter to emotions nearly ecslatic. Martin was often more 
curt, more odd than usual on these occasions. He would blush, 
throw his flowers down carelessly, and then walk off as if he had 
been offended. 

“Disagreeable boy he is,” Mrs. Seri cote said on one occasion 
wflien Martin had walked away in the middle of Agnes’ thanks and 
delight, banging the door after him as he went out. 

“"But he is so very, very good,” Agnes said, as she stood flushed 
with pleasure by the table singling out long scented sprays of wood- 
ruff, turquois torget-me-nots, and sweet blue violets. It was a little 
grieving to Mrs. Serlcote to see her new crimson table-cover littered 
with trash, and it was altogether perplexing to see any grown-up 
person blushing with delight in it. Slowly it occurred to her per- 
plexed brain that there might be deeper cause for the blushes. 

“ Surely you are not falling in love with Martin,” she said, her 
cap-ribbons trembling with irritation at the thought. 

Agnes’ color went deeper still— this time with pure resentment. 
She hesitated as she generally did tvhen touched to anything like 
anger; then slowly the feeling died away, and a pleasant smile 
broke over her face. 

“ !No, I’m not falling in love with him now. Aunt Susan,” she 
said, turning to the flowers again. “ I have loved him ever since I 
have known him. If 1 had a brother of my own 1 don’t think I 
could have cared more for him than I care for Martin.” 

That was all ; no more was said ; there was no need for more. 
Agues’ eyes had been opened ruthlessly, and it seemed to her that 
she would have given all that she had to give if she might have been 
blind again. Never once had it crossed her mind that anything was 
possible between Martin and herself save friendship — the deep quiet 
brotherly friendship that she had been so glad to receive, the warm 
grateful sisterly friendship that she had been so ready to give. 

She knew now that nothing in her earthly life was so much to her 
as this was. Take Marlin out of it, with all his flowers and his 
books, and his thoughtful little kindnesses, and what would be 
left? 

She was grieved and saddened, and tried to soothe herself by de- 
ciding that there should be no change. But the decision was idle; 
change was inevitable, and it dated from that hour. 

Uf course Martiu was quick to feel it, and it increased the tension 
of his life immeasurably. What had happened? whatw^as the 
meaning of these new and nameless differences of tone, and word, 
and look, and manner? Meaning there must be. Agues was loo 
true, too unaffected to look one thing while feeling another. Her 
new want of ease in his presence was painful be 5 ’'ond description to 
him at first. Had she discovered the real state of his feelings? W'as 
she annoyed at his presumption? 

Then, discovering this change in herself, feeling too the pain it 
wrought in him, Agnes began to avoid his presence altogether when- 
ever it was possible to do so; especially did she avoid at any time 
being alone with him. The hour oi two before the suppei had lately 
been the pleasantest hours of Martin’s whole life. He had his own 


A LOST SOK. 


G5 


place by a large table at the further end of the room, where he used 
to sit in an awkward attitude with his head resting on liis hand and 
an open book on the table before him. Ai^nes, and sometimes 
i:iizabeth, used to sit on the sofa opposite, sewing, knitting, talk- 
ing, smiling. The contrast between the girls was interesting to Mar- 
tin. Agnes’ small dark head, her brilliant deep eyes, her refined 
clear-out features, used to stand out in vivid relief against the 
painted gray panel behind her; while Elizabeth’s colorless hair, her 
broad, flat, placid-looking face, and round, stooping figure, usually 
clad in gowns of the same color as the paint, maae her seem almost 
like part of the furniture. Martin used to deal carefully with the 
pleasure of looking up from his book. If he looked up long enough 
he w'HS sure to win an understanding smile, perhaps a remark, at 
times even a question concerning the open page before him, that 
drew him to her side and led to an interesting discussion that made 
poor Elizabeth wmnder how it came to pass that these two were so 
“ clever,” and had so much to say about things of which she had 
never even heard. 

But all this was over now. Agnes had decided that she would 
give the children their daily music lesson in the evenings. She 
would like it better during the spring and summer, she said, and 
then they could take long country walks in the afternoon. Every 
one though it an odd wlum, but no one save Martin came near the 
real truth in accounting for it. In the first week he still took his 
place at the long table with his book, but the sound of the piano, 
though it was far away -in the drawing-room upstairs, disturbed 
him, and made his attempts at reading futile. Still he sat there 
pretending to read, no one noticing him enough to see whether he 
turned over the pages or not; 

This sense of forlornness was intolerable now. Before Agnes 
came it had been a kind of passive suffering, unsuspected by others 
and unencouraged by himself. Kow the suffering was most in- 
tensely active, and the intensity did but seem to deepen with its con- 
tinuance. 

But at last the hour came when he could sit there no longer. It 
was a cold and rather mild May evening; the twilight w’as falling 
with the gloom and dullness of a November afternoon. Martin 
could not see to read, he did not care to go out for n walk, he did 
not care to go anywhere, he said to himself, as he sauntered slowly 
out of the room. 

There w^as a dark, dilapidated staircase at the back of the house 
leading to some upper rooms given up to rats and packing-cases. 
The door of one of them wms open, and Martin went in. The silent 
empty gloom seemed, to suit his mood, and there w^as space within 
to walk up and down. He could breathe more easily and think 
more easily there than in the narrow back parlor. But thought was 
not easy to him anywhere, nor pleasant. 

A long time Martin walked there. He knew' wdien Fanny and 
Ellen finished their lesson and went away. Agnes went on play- 
ing. He could hear the soft, quiet, touching strains quite distinctly 
Martin wgs no musician, but he had an impression that he w'as 
jistening to a hymn, or perhaps a prayer. It was not like praise or 
thanksgiving, but like pleading, supplicating, longing tor rest. 


A LOST SOK. 


66 

Agnes herself did not know what she was playing; she was think- 
ing intently, letting her fingers wander listlessly over the keys. It 
was a habit she had when she was troubled or perplexed. 

She was glad to be alone just now. The day had been an unusu- 
ally trying one; it was tlie eve of Julian’s birthday, and there had 
been a new unspoken sadness in the house all through the week. 
ISo one had even alluded to it, and Martin in his preoccupation 
had not remembered it. Probably it would not have made much 
difference to him it he had. Lately, unknown to himself, there 
had been a strong tendency in him to ignore Julian’s memory alto- 
gether. It was not his doing that Julian had blotted himself out of 
life. Why should he be wretched— or, more important still, why 
should any one else be wretched to the end of existence because of 
that long past wrong-doing, or because of him who had done it and 
passed out of siirht with it? That such a thing should be either 
necessary or right was not to be conceded tor a moment. 

Agnes had thought but little of Martin during that long sad day. 
In the morning, just before awakening, she had had a brief vivid 
dream. It seemed to her that she was in a small cottage, with her 
mother, somewhere on the bleak Northumbrian coast. A wild 
storm was raging without, causing the doors and windows to rattle, 
sweeping over the lowly root, moaning in the wide chimney. A 
kind of vaffue dread was upon her, which was aroused to something 
more definUe by the entrance of a child, crying out, in great excite- 
ment, “ Come, come quickly; your father is going out to sea in 
this terrible storm. In a second, as it seemed to her, she found 
herself out on the quay, flying along between lines of people who 
made way for her. She recognized many of them. All the friends 
she had known in her life seemed to be there. Still she flew on, a 
hurricane of wind and rain beating overhead, the deepening roar of 
the waves in her ear. The sea was lashing itself into huge gray 
mountains, crested with white; the spray fell in heavy showers. 
Suddenly she stopped. The people with one movement fell back- 
ward from the edge of the quay, disclosing to her view a small 
steamboat which she knew quite well. She had seen it almost daily 
for many years in her childhood; its quaint Saxon name, the 
ancient name of the town, was there on its stern in large gilt let- 
ters. This part of her dream was vivid beyond description. There 
was only one figure on the wave-swept deck of the vessel, and this 
one was her father. He stood there hy the helm, seeming strange 
in the strange new nobility that had passed upon him. His face 
was turned toward her, calm and dignified. Perfectly still he stood, 
waving no farewells to the crowd. The boat was just beginning to 
turn her head to the open sea as Agnes rushed forward, her arms 
outstretched, her voice raised aloud in a cry of agony. 

“Oh, father, father, wherever you are going, take me with 
you I” 

But her father raised his hand in interdiction. 

“ No,” he said, solemnly, “ you can not come. Tou have work 
to do, and Julian Serlcote will wish to see you to-day.” 

Even as he uttered the words her feeling of distress seemed to 
resolve itself into one of pride in him who spoke them. She was 
conscious of a certain satisfaction that so many were there to see 


A LOST 


67 


him as he was now, with every trace ot care and anxiety and world- 
liuess gone from his face, and in their stead a stamp of maiesty and 
consecration that seemed to elevate her own soul even as she looked 
upon him. Was this her father v Was she the daughter ot one so 
great ? 

She awoke with these questions, so to speak, on her lips, and 
feeling as if some new thing had come into her life. It was only a 
dream, but for that day it was more powerful to influence her inner 
self than were the realities of her wakening life. A strange quiet- 
ness was upon her, notwithstanding the sense of coming change. 
She felt that if Julian were to return suddenly she could receive 
him without much perturbation. Indeed, he seemed to be so near 
her that the feeling at times rose to expectation. Yet it. did not dis- 
turb her ; it seemed as if, remembering the look, the voice, the man- 
ner ot him who had spoken to her from the deck of the boat, she 
could not easily be disturbed by any mere worldly event. 

She believed very certainly now that Julian was living, and she 
did not doubt that he was needing her, or at any rate thinking of 
her. 

Toward evening this consciousness grew stronger. She knew that 
she had given the children their music lesson in a very mechanical 
way; her thoughts had been absent all the while. Was Julian ill? 
Was he perishing with hunger while his father’s servants had bread 
enough and to spare? What was his need, his danger, his sorrow? 
It ^emed all but too much for endurance that she whose heart was 
almost weighed down with its burden ot broken aflection, who 
would have walked the length and breadth ot the land to hold his 
hand in hers but for an hour, might not even know whether ten 
miles or ten thousand stretched between them. There was only one 
thing she could know with any certainty, let him be where he 
might, he could not be where God’s mercy and loving-kindness 
could not reach him. Therefore, though she might not afford him 
lower and more human help, she might help him by her prayers to 
an extent that she could neither imagine nor limit. “ More things 
are wrought by prayer than this world dreams.” This she knew 
and this she believed, and she acted upon that belief. 

******* 

The piano had been silent some time when Martin Brooke came 
down from the garret-room where he had been wondering and 
thinking. He went very softly to the drawing-room. Agnes was 
standing near the fire, with the full warm glow of its light upon 
her. There was no other light in the room; the curtains were not 
drawn; the rain was beating upon the window panes; the wind was 
rising and moaning almost as wildly as it had moaned in her dream. 

She looked up with a smile, but Martin saw that it was an absent 
one as he came tremblingly forward. He had tried to prepare him- 
self, at any rate, to decide what he should say first; but his presence 
of mind forsook him before he spoke. 

His tremulousness was quite perceptible. Agnes could see the 
warm color rising in his face, the intense earnest look that was 
coming into his eyes; and her own consciousness began to come 
back to her she noted these things. Martin was holding out a 


G8 


A LOST SOK. 


book, a ucw copy of George llerbeiT’s poeins bound in dark green 
leather. 

“ Will you accept this?” he said, in a kind ot whisper, beginning 
with what he had meant to be the very end of the scene. Then he 
looked up hopelessly. 

Somehow Agues felt his helplessness, and felt too the cause of it. 
She took the book hesitatingly, yet gently and pityingly. 

” How beautiful it is!” she said. “ Hut why should you give it 
to me? Keep it — 1 would rather you should keep it, and lend it to 
me when I want it, which will be very often.” 

” No,” said Martin, declining to take it; and beginning to recover 
himself a little. “No; 1 bought it for you some time ago; but 1 
never dared to give it to 3^011 till to-night.” 

Then he stopped again; he had more to say, and words \^cre not 
wumting; but something else was wanting. He had never felt so 
strengtliless, so selt-deseited. It would be no wonder if Agnes 
should despise him and his plea altogether. 

The idea was stimulating; almost without an efiort, as it seemed 
to himself, he rose above that pitiable mood that had been upon 
him. A touch that had the force of electricity seemed to pass 
through him and from him. Agnes knew all that was coming; she 
might not avert it; she could only strengthen herself to meet it. 

The book was still in her hand: Martin came a little nearer. 
Agnes perceiving with a certain unwilling consciousness that he 
was no longer the every-day commonplace young man whose com- 
ing and going had never raised her pulse for the hundredth part of 
a second since she had known him. Now her heart was beating 
till she could hardly control it. The change was not unnoted. 

“ 1 couldn’t have come to you to-night but for something that 
occurred to me just now,” he said, beginning in clearer and quieter 
tones than he had used before. “ 1 have been unhappy— very un- 
happy— but it has occurred to me that you were keeping out of my 
way — because — because you had discovered that — it w^as better to do 
so. 1 did not know — I can only hope that you (eared you might 
be beginning to care for me, and didn’t want to unless you knew 
that 1 cared ^or you; and — ” 

“Oh, no, Martin; no!” she said, interrupting him in pleading 
tones; “ that is not it. It is all a mistake! Oh, 1 am so sorry!” 

“ Don’t say it is a mistake!” Martin broke in, impetuously, the 
rising pain within him making itself felt in his voice and manner. 
“ Don’t say that! 1 don’t think you know quite. You have never 
thought of it. You don’t know how 1 have loved you!— yes, even 
when 1 had no right to love you! 1 didn’t acknowledge it to my- 
self. 1 didn’t dare to think of you with any hope even when 1 
might have done so. Ever since you came you have been all the 
satisfaction I have had in life. To think of you, to care for you, 
to long ever}’ day and all day long to make you happy has been all 
1 have lived for so tar as this world was concerned.” 

Agnes had interrupted him before, and he had taken no notice of 
the interruption. Now she raised her hand with a beseeching gest- 
ure, and looked at him with an expression more beseeching still. 
Marlin hardly knew it, but hope died within him before any word 
was sakh 


A LOST SOK. 


69 


‘‘Martin, 1 know all that you have done,’’ she said, speakini; 
gently and sadly, but altogether kindl}^; “1 know and remember 
things that you have forgotten. You have never even guessed the 
comfort that you have been to me — that you are still, and 1 hope 
will continue to be. Don’t let this make any change; 1 have sor- 
row enough.’’ 

Martin stood quietly for a few moments. The shock was upon 
him still, and it was heavier than he was able to realize. 

But he did not bear it badly. After the first ten minutes or so 
he ceased to feel stunned, and began to recognize his disappoint- 
ment as a fact to which he would have to reconcile himself. He 
was just a shade astonished at his own capacity for being philoso- 
phical at such a moment. 

His first thought had been of himself, this must be sadly ac- 
knowledged; his next thought was of Agnes, of the sorrow to 
which she had alluded. 

“ You are still grieving for liimV' Martin asked, in some surprise. 

“ ‘ Still!' You speak as if twenty years had passed! If it were 
twice twenty, and he had not returned, 1 should be grieving!” 

Martin’s astonishment grew stronger, still, and a little shame 
stole into his heart for the deliberate"^way in which he had tried to 
persuade himself that Julian was forgotten. Agnes’ vivid remem- 
brance, her keen, strong affection, was as visible in her manner as 
in her words. Martin had had no idea that he was touching chorda 
so ready to vibrate under his hand. He V7as tender-hearted, and 
his pity for her was well-nigh as strong as his own disappointment. 

“ Do you think that Julian will come back here?” he asked, 
sadly. The expectation seemed such a vain one to him. 

“ Yes, I do,” Agnes said. “ But 1 know that 1 have no grounds 
for thinking so, at least none that would seem valid to any one 
else.” 

Then there was another silence. A gleam of distant hope crossed 
Martin’s brain. He could not let it go. 

“ If you should be mistaken, if things should go on as they have 
done, couldn’t you— couldn’t you ever care for me?” 

Martin spoke very calmly. Agnes was not disturbed or annoyed 
by his pertinacity. 

8he looked at him when she replied as quietly as he w^as looking 
at her. 

“ If Julian should never come back,” she said, “ and if I knew 
quite certainly that he never would, and if 1 should set myself to 
try to care foi you as 1 have cared for him, you would have cause 
to repent most bitterly the day you ever saw me. 1 should piobably 
succeed up to a certain point, the point of deceiving you and my- 
self also, and then would come the time for being undeceived, aiid 
life for me would be one miserable lie; for you one long miserable 
effort to believe it. Love is love for some people, let others change 
as they will. 1 may never see him again in this world, but that can 
make no difference. He is as near to me as if 1 saw" him every day, 
and so he will remain.” 

She had spoken in firmer, more decided tones than she had meant 
to use. Martin looked up, and Agnes thought that he seemed re- 
proachfulj but it was self-reproach that was moving him? How 


A LOST SO]Sr. 


70 

blind he had been! How untrue to himself, perhaps to Julian also! 
He had thought the thing he wished to think, and now he had to 
repent of his self-seeking. 

“ Don’t misunderstand me,” Agnes said, speaking more sooth- 
ingly, “ and don’t think that 1 am not sory. Perhaps 1 have been 
to blame, but 1 did not dream of this. Let us forget it; let us be 
just the same to each other as we were before.” 

Martin listened to the words as if he had hardly heard them; but 
later they came back upon him forcibly. It seemed strange to him 
that that evening could be almost as if it had never been, that he 
could go on calmly reconciling himself to the sense of loss, yet 
daily, hourly, feeling more and more the worth, the goodness, the 
spiritual beauty of the woman he had lost, or rather failed to win. 

Once or twice a kind of paroxysm came over him, rending his very 
heart wilh agonizing longings and regrets. But not by so much as 
a shadow upon his face did he betray to any human being the test- 
ing he had gone through so bravely. It was thus that he sultered, 
not continuously, not even frequently, but during a few supreme 
hours that wrought deep effects upon his life. 


CHAPTER Xll. 

THE PRODIGAL IS SEEN A LONG WAY OFF. 

Good love, howe’er ill placed, 

Is better for a man’s soul in the end 
Than if he loved ill what deserves love well. 

Mrs. Browning: Aurora Leigh. 

When the end of the summer came Martin Brooke startled his 
uncle one day by asking for a holiday. Joshua Serlcote had never 
had any holidays himself; he had never dreamed of such a thing. 
Pleasure-seeking was for the rich, the idle. Nevertheless, Martin 
was allowed to set out with his friends on a three weeks’ walking 
tour through the English Lake district. 

The extra woik that devolved upon Mr. Serlcote made him a 
little fretful at times, a little uncertain in temper. When Martin 
had been gone about a week everybody began to wish he would 
come back again; things were not going on smoothly; there was a 
sense of perpetual strain and frequent jar. 

“Go and tell your father again that breakfast is ready,” Mrs. 
Serlcote said snappishly to Nellie one morning. Presently Nellie 
came back, looking sad, and afraid to give the message she had to 
give. 

“Father says he doesn’t want any breakfast,” the child said, 
limidl3^ 

Even Mrs. Serlcote looked up in surprise. Her husband was not 
given to caprices of this kind. 

“ Well, 1 suppose he knows best,” she said, in subdued tones, 
but she did not appear to be concerned. Doubtless Joshua’s temper 
had been rulEed again, which was no new thing, though he was 
taking a new way of showing it. 

Agnes did not say anything, she felt disposed to an unusual 


A LOST SOK. 71 

silence; but after breakfast she opened the glass door gently and 
went into the shop. 

Her uncle was there, sitting behind the little railing that screened 
the desir. Agnes saw at once, from his attitude, that it was not 
temper that was upon him. He was ill or in trouble. A single 
glance at his face confirmed her in this opinion. 

“ V/hat is it, uncle?” she said, gently; ” are jmu not well?” 

Joshua Serlcote did not answer, but he pushed toward her the 
pile ol letters which had come by that morning’s post. The top 
letter was addressed to Martin Brooke in Julian’s handwriting— not 
the clear, firm, beautiful writing upon which he had prided himselt 
so much; this was crooked, tremulous, barely legible; still it was 
Julian’s. 

” You will open it, uncle?” she said, almost breathlessly, but 
speaking as it there could be no doubt as to the answer. But 
Joshua Serlcote replied decisively, emphatically: 

‘‘ 1 shall certainly not open it.” 

Agnes’ heart was beating slowly, heavily; her hands were turn- 
ing cold ; she was beginning to feel faint. 

No one else was present; Ben Chadwick had gone to his break- 
fast. Agnes turned away, and sat down on one of the high chairs 
to recover herself. 

Presently she spoke again. 

‘‘You remember that we have not Martin’s address?” she asked; 
” and that he will not be home for another fortnight?” 

“Yes, 1 remember,” her uncle said, speaking in the same hard 
tone as before. 

” And you have noted that handwriting?’' 

“ Certainly 1 have noted it.” 

Then Agnes came back to her uncle’s side, and laid one hand 
genlly on his shoulder. 

” Julian is ill,” she said; ” I feel certain of that. He may be 
dying, if you will not open this letter yourself you will let me 
open it?” 

Joshua Serlcote rose from his seat, and with trembling hands 
placed the letter inside his desk. 

‘‘It is addressed to Martin Brooke,” he said, his lips quivering 
painfully as he spoke; ‘‘and Martin Brooke shall receive it as it 
came.” 

Then he turned away, suffering too much himself to be fully 
alive to the suffering he was inflicting. 

Agnes’ first step was to send an urgent telegram to the inn at 
Windermere from which Martin’s one letter had been dated; her 
next to write to the innkeeper. Then she set out in search of the 
friends of Martin’s friends, hoping that they might know more of 
the plans of the tourists than she knew, but in this she was disap- 
pointed. 

It was good for her to be doing something. She was almost 
sorry when she could find nothing more to do. Never before in 
her whole life had patience been so difficult. 

The remainder of the week passed on. Joshua Serlcote kept 
silence, and kept it in that hard, proud, impassive manner of his 
which seemed to defy any one to break it. 


A LOST SOK. 


n 

No news of Martin came. Agnes watched every post, listening 
breathlessly to every knock, starting at the sound of every opening 
door. She was growing paler and thinner under the strain, and her 
uncle saw that she was, but no sign of relenting came trom him. 

Eight days had passed when Martin suddenly walked in, pale 
and earnest-looking. It was early in the morning, and he had been 
traveling all night, having only received Agnes’ telegram on the 
previous day. 

Be had no thought of himself—of rest or of refreshment. He 
asked his uncle quietly for the letter, and then went to his room to 
read it. Agnes was waiting for him by the drawing-room door 
wdien he came down. She had dismissed the children for a while. 

They went into the room, and Martin gave her the letter at once, 
judging wu’sely that this would be the best thing to do. The con- 
tents were distressing, but it seemed to him that even distress would 
be better than that sad, wistful patience that had been heis so long. 

As Agnes had feared, Julian was ill, dying, he believed himself 
to be, and in utter pennilessness. 

The letter wms brief, and written with great effort, but a spirit 
not Julian’s seemed to breathe through every line. 

He said nothing of his humility, little of his patience, and less of 
his faith, but it was evident that he was no stranger to these things, 
and also that he had become acquainted with them through a 
sterner and more sorrowful teaching than any they had feared. 

He had two objects in writing, he said; one w\as to ask tor money 
sulBcient to discharge a small debt owing to his landlady, and to 
provide him with necessaries during the short time he had to live; 
the other was to beg his father’s foigiveuess. 

“1 wmuld have written to my father myself,” he said, ‘‘but 1 
feared that he would not read a letter in my handwriting. Will 
you read as much of this to him as you think fit, and try to plead 
fdr me? it he will not help me, at least beg him to forgive me. 1 
have prayed night and day that he might be led to do it — prayed 
till 1 have been almost as sure of it as I am of a higher forgiveness.” 

There was more than this. Agnes could hardly see her own 
name through the tears that were blinding her eyes, but she strove 
to read on. 

” 1 need not ask tor Agnes’ forgiveness,” he continued. ” Hut 
tell her, tell her this, with such love as was never mine before, that 
it has been the thought of her, of her goodness, of her failli, that 
has saved me from depths of ruin and despair that 1 can not now 
think of without horror. 1 can say no more, but it seems to me as 
it not one entreaty, not one prayer, not so much as an appealing 
look of hers, had ever fallen to the ground.” 

Agnes was silent for a few moments after she had read the letter. 
Then she said: 

‘‘ Which of us shall go to Uncle Joshua?” 

” Don’t you think it would be better for me to go?” Martin said. 
*‘ I have no hope of succeeding, but Julian has asked me, and it 
would prepare the way for you.” 

“You will go at once?” 

“ Yes, immediately. Will j^ou wail till 1 come buck?” 

Agnes had not long to wait. Slie tried to pray, to ignore the 


A LOST SOK. 


73 


tumult of sorrow that Was in her own soul, to shut out the hope 
that pleaded so earn(Stlyfor entrance. It seemed to her that she 
had not had lime enough for all these things when she heard a step 
on the stair. She heard with some surprise that it was not Martin’s 
step but her uncle’s. 

The old man entered the room in a stately fashion that boded ill. 
It seemed to Agnes that not for years had she seen his gray head so 
erect, his thin, firm mouth so mercilessly closed. He w^as pale, but 
it was the pallor ot strong determination. 

“ 1 have come here at the request of Mr. Martin Brooke,” Lie 
began, in a hard, thin voice that broke tremulously even in the 
middle of this first sentence. ‘‘ But 1 have come to say what 1 have 
been saying to him— -wTiat 1 have been preparing to say ever since 1 
saw the outside of that letter.” 

Then he stopped from sheer incapacity to proceed. His age had 
told upon his strength; his sorrow had told upon it more. His 
stoical pride was making serious demands upon his physical weak- 
ness. 

Have you read the letter, uncle?” she asked. 

‘‘Ho; 1 have not read it. 1 have determined that 1 would not 
read ii — that 1 wmuld not listen to it— and 1 will keep my deter- 
mination. 1 knew perfectly well what it would contain; there would 
be a plea of ill-health, a request for money, a few idle words about 
forgiveness. Martin informs me that every conjecture is right, 
therefore there is nothing to disturb the resolution 1 have made. 
Years ago 1 cast off my son, and 1 cast him off forever. The suffer- 
ing mat it cost me to do so 1 have endured. If it should be possible 
for me ever to forget that suffering, then — but not till then — will it 
be possible for me to forgive him who was the cause ot it.” 

“But, Uncle Joshua, 1 too know something of forgiveness. If 
you could forgive, it would be easy to forget — nay, it would be 
difficult and painful to remember!” 

Joshua Serlcote made no reply; he had settled himself in an 
attitude of patient waiting, placing his elbow on the mantel piece 
and leaning his head on his hand. Agnes would plead; he would 
listen to her, and while listening he would remember. 

“You say that you have-cast Julian off, that he is no longer your 
son,” Agnes went on, subduing the eagerness within her with all 
the strength she had to spare. “Supposing that could be — sup- 
posing that he had never been your son, but simply a man who had 
sinned against you, and repented of his sin — do you not think that 
he is entitled to your forgiveness?” 

Her uncle made no answ^er: he stood there, not looking at his 
niece, but beyond her, out of the wn’ndows. Those compressed lips 
ot his did not look as if they were likely to betray him. 

“ But patting aside all thought of Julian,” the girl resumed, in 
bolder and more resolute tones, “ think of yourself — of the risk, the 
danger t)f delay! ‘ When ye stand prajdng, forgive, if ye have 
aught against any; that your Father also which is in heaven may 
forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will 
your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.’ ” 

Still there was no change in the old man’s look or attitude. What 
Christian spirit there was alive m him acknowledged the righteous- 


74 


A LOST SOK. 


ness of her plea, but the sense of his own suflering was keener at 
that moment than his sense of Christian duty. 

Agnes was bewildered by his resistance; she had never known 
of that last wild deed of Julian’s — the midnight robbery of his 
father’s shop. She did not know that in Joshua Serlcote’s mind 
all his son’s other faults had been dwarfed into insignificance by that 
most disastrous act. 

The old man was aware of her ignorance, but not even now would 
he excuse his own hardness by disclosing to her the depths to which 
Julian had descended. 

What could she do or say more? Her own great love was almost 
overpowered by her great tender pity. Was it possible that Julian’s 
father was feeling no pity, no tenderness at all? — that he was 
capable of none? 

“ Think of him, Uncle Joshua— think of him!’' she exclaimed, 
more passionately than before. “ He is alone, penniless, d 3 ing, and 
pleads that he may not die un forgiven. Is it possible that you can 
refuse to forgive him? Think of that other father— the father of 
the prodigal son in the Bible! When the prodigal was yet a ffieat 
way oft his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell 
on his neck and kissed him.” 

Joshua Serlcote’s lip quivered, his whole frame seemed to quiver; 
still he uttered no word. 

Presently Agnes came near to him, and took his chill hands in 
hers. The look that she met was almost startling. 

There must be something more than she knew of — some un- 
fathomed depths in the old man’s heart. He was looking into her 
face pleadingly, reproachfully, and a strange resemblance to her 
mother struck her, almost for the first time. She seemed to under- 
stand him better — or rather to become aware that there were things 
that she might not understand. Yet she could not ask. A mo- 
ment longer she watched that strange new look, then she spoke 
again more gently. 

“Oh, uncle,” she said, “ you will forgive him! 1 know you will 
forgive him! You are longing to do so! Don’t let any thought ot 
anything prevent you. Think only of that Good Shepherd who 
goes out into the wilderness to seek His straying slieep; and when He 
has found a wanderer, takes it on His sTmdders and carries it home 
rejoicing,^'* 

Even while she spoke Joshua Serlcote’s eyes were slowly filling 
with tears. He sunk into the nearest chair, covered his face with 
his hands, and sobbed as he had never before sobbed within liis 
own remembrance. 

He wished to be alone, but he had no power to move away. 

“ Leave me, leave me!” he cried, in his distress, and Agnes went 
out— -went to her own room to pray for him, and not for him only. 


A LOST SOK. 


75 


CHAPTER Xlll. 

DISAPPOINTMENT. 

To expect what never comes, to lie in bed and not sleep, to serve well and not 
be advanced, are three things to die of . — I talian Proverb. 

Martin Brooke was a little astonished by the questi()n his uncle 
put to him on the evening ot the day of his return. 

It had been a silent day, Martin could not see his way with any 
clearness. Something must be done, and done at once, and it ap- 
peared that he must act upon his own responsibility. Acting thus 
it was not much he could do. In that most important matter of 
all, obtaining the old man’s forgiveness, he had proved himself 
entirely powerless. He was disheartened. All else that remained 
to be done seemed so trivial in comparison. 

The shop had been closed some time, but Martin remained there 
in the semi -dark ness, brooding over his difficult position. He raised 
his head when his uncle came in, but he looked up very absently, 
hoping nothing, expecting nothing, unless it were some querulous 
remark upon his being there. 

For a minute or two Joshua Serlcote stood silent, and Martin saw 
that the expression ot his face was changed. If possible it was a 
sadder face to look upon than before. Much of the determination, 
the hardness, had gone from it. The fight, the long fierce fight 
was over. He had not yielded, he had been beaten. Even yet the 
pressure from within, the pressure of his stifled love and yearning 
for his son, seemed as little in sympathy with himself as did that 
pressure that had been brought to bear upon him from without. 

Yet he had sufi:ered, and the grace of suffering was in his words, 
as well as in his tone and look. 

“ What is it you wish to do, Martin?” 

The question was vague^ but so uttered that Martin quite under- 
stood it. 

‘‘ I should like to go up to London by the first train in the morn- 
ing.” 

“Very well. I suppose your holiday is not over yet, you can 
spend your time as you choose.” 

There was another pause. The next question was a difficult one, 
but Martin did not plunge into the difficulty. He took breath, 
stroked the feathered end of his quill pen backward with careless 
fingers, then he said, 

“ If Julian is able to travel 1 suppose it will be better to bring 
him back with me?” 

For a second that seemed ten the eyes of the two met. Joshua 
Serlcole’s were the first to drop. 

” Don’t try me too far, Martin,” he said, tremulously. ” 1 don’t 
know what I can bear yet. But perhaps — perhaps I can bear any- 
thing that you may choose to do.” 

Then he turned away, leaving Martin behind with a new heart of 
hope and thankfulness in him. Martin did not stay there long. 


76 A LOST SOK. 

He had to share his hope, to impart a toucli of new life to another 
heart. 

Agnes Dyne and Martin Brooke were both young, and one was 
buoyant. In spite of all past sorrow and present room for sorrow, 
Agnes could no longer oeny entrance to the hopefulness that came. 
Julian might be ill, very ill, but what could not care and kindness 
do? The power of these things was limited, it was true; but there 
was a power to heal and bless that Knew no limit. “ With God 
nothing is impossible,” she said to herself. And was not God to 
be reached by prayer? Was not His aid to be won by faith? 

Martin had to be at the station by five o’clock the next looming, 
and he was surprised that his uncle should be stirring so early. 
Agnes was down, making tea; moving quietly about, smiling now 
and then that sweet bright smile that Martin loved so much to see. 
Joshua saw it too, but it seemed to make him sadder. Whatever 
the result of Martin’s errand, there could be no more joyfulness or 
hope fulness for him on this side of the grave. He could not live 
his life again; he could not slowly day b} day build up new living 
hope, or try to revive the dead ones. There remained nothing for 
him save sad regret for the things that had been; regrets sadder 
still lor the things that were not and could now never be. 

He was very restless as the time of Martin’s departure drew near ; 
he could not even sit still, but went in and out of the room, looking 
strangely gray and wan and nervous. At the last moment he put 
some thin paper, tightly folded, into Martin’s hand, and Martin 
knew that it was money. His first impulse was to refuse it; having 
already provided himself with what he considered would be enough 
for his cousin’s need and his own. His second and better thought,, 
however, came quickly. “ 1 am to take this to Julian from you?”’ 
he said, it was easy to say anything in the excitement of the 
moment, yet he paused a moment before he added, “ Shall I take 
any message?” 

There was a brief struggle in Josliua Serlcote’s soul, then he 
lifted up his face and spoke fervidly as a man speaks on his death- 
bed. 

” Tell him —tell him that 1 pray tor grace to forgive him.” 

That was all. He responded to the warm grasp of Marlin’s hand; 
and then he turned away out of sight. The emotions within him 
were too conflicting to permit him to seek the sympathy he stood so 
sorely in need of. 

The day went by slowly; even Mrs. Serlcote was gentle and sub- 
dued, and shed her tears of mingled hope and joy in secret. 
Julian’s return was by no means the same thing to her that it was to 
her husband. She had nothing to forget, nothing to forgive. Tlicre 
was no room in her mind for more than one idea at a time; and the 
idea present now was that Julian was coming back. She made no 
parade of her preparations; but she was happier than any one else 
in the house because she had so much to prepare. 

Martin had promised to write as soon as possible; ” probably that 
same evening,” he had said as he went out; and it was not until the 
morning came, and there was no letter, that Joshua Serlcote and 
his household knew how intensely for four and-twenty hours they 
had been living on that hasty promise of Martin’s. 


A LOST SOK. 




Nothing was said at breakfast- time, but afterward Agnes and 
Elizabeth tried to comfort each other. Perhaps Martin had thought 
that it was not worth while to write; they might be on tlieir way 
home even now, or Martin might have been careless about posting 
liis letter in time. Neither of the hypotheses was very tenable, as 
the girls knew but too well; yet there was comfort in trying to 
maintain them— in ignoring those nine long days that had elapsed 
between the receipt of Julian’s letter and Martin’s departure, and 
all that might have happened in that time. 

But when another morning came and there was still no news, 
words of comfort came less readily, and with less assurance. Not 
‘one member of that household acknowledged to another the full 
ao*ony of the suspense in which they were held. Mrs. Serlcote 
bfamed Martin with all the eloquence that she was possessed of. Let 
the circumstances be what they might, he ought to have written, 
she said; hardly any news could be worse than this torturing delay. 
But no one agreed with her on this latter point. The delay was 
painful, but hope still lingered behind the pain.^ 

On the third morning the letters had been delivered a little earlier 
than usual. AVhen Agnes came down-stairs her uncle was stand- 
ing by the open door, leaning there to catch the cool morning 
breeze. He looked faint, and there was an unopened letter in his 
hand, which he held out to his niece. It was in Martin’s hand- 
writing, and it was not bordered with black. 

“ Read it— read it to yourself,” he said, hurriedly, “ and tell me 
what it contains. 1 know the news is bad.” 

Yes the news was bad. Agnes read on, her face growing paler, 
the letter in her hand trembling more visibly, her uncle watching 
her keenly, but patiently. 

She looked up at last. 

“ Martin can not find Julian,” she said, slowly. 

” Can not find him?” 

“ No; he left the lodging he had been in five days before Martin 
arrived there. The landlady thinks he left because he did not wish 
to run more deeply into her debt.” 

“ And did he not say where he was going?” 

“ He did not know.” 

“ Is that all?’' 

‘‘No; but will you not read the letter?” 

Joshua took it m his hand again, but he could not see the words. 
There was a mist before his eyes, and a gathering sense of darkness. 

‘‘ Tell me— tell me the rest,” he said, faintly. 

” There is not much to tell. Marlin is doing all that may be 
done; advertising, making inquiries everywhere, and by every 

” Doesn’t he say a word of — of Julian’s health?” asked^ the old 
man, with great effort. It was the first time that his son s name 
had passed his lips tor nearly three years. 

Agnes hesitated. She was quite calm now. 

“ He only repeats what the landlady said. She thought that the 
young man could not live many days.” 

It was only another shock— trouble falling where trouble had 
been before. It vibrated through the house tor a few days, thrill- 


78 


A LOST SOK. 


ins: afresh with every letter that came from Martin, dying down 
to a dull, hopeless sadness after reading the details of his fruitless 
search. 

For three weeks Martin remained in London— weeks of daily- 
increasing desperation. When he wrote, he wrote the'naRed truth; 
he compelled himself to do this; but all the while he went on 
hoping against hope, fighting against the despair that beset him 
with eveiy fresh disappointment. 

Then he came back; and even in the first sickening moment of 
confirmed hopelessness, he drew some oi the anxiety of the house- 
liold upon himself. He was merely a shadow of the Martin Brooke 
that went out; he was paler, and thinner, and older-looking hy 
years. He had failed so far as his objsct went, but he had not 
failed in doing his duty. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

RELENTING. 

Alas ! long; suffering and most patient God, 

Thou n^ed’st be surelier God to bear with us 
Than even to have made us. 

Mrs. Browning: Aurora Leigh. 

We have most of us proved for ourselves this truth of ShaRe- 
speare’s— 

“ When sorrows come they come not single spies, 

But in battahons.” 

We may perhaps fight manfully for awhile, a longer or shorter 
while according to our strength, but there comes a day when cour- 
age fails, when a terrible dread undermines our faith. Hath God 
forgotten to be gracious? Will He be no more entreated? Is His 
mercy clean gone forever? 

These crises do not, thank God! come into all lives, but some 
there are who have to live through the fire of such hours again 
and again, amazed, stricken, uncomprehending. Hope seems tarn 
from them. I’ime after time they rise up bravely, yet humbly, 
tremulously, but only to be cast down lower than before. Even 
the promises of God’s Word seem to lose their meaning— the very 
promises whereby we had lived and moved in peace and trust for 
half a life-time. 

And look, Whatsoever he doeth it shall prosper,” saith the 
Psalmist. And look, whatsoever we do, there is no prosperity at 
all, say we. Our every leaf hangs withered on the bough. We arc 
as trees planted in a barren and dry land where no water is. 

In time of great and continued trial such moods may come upon 
us unawares; but they can not stay with us unawares; they can 
not say with us without sin. 

This is deliverance if we will seek it; strength to seek may be 
had for the asking. There is no condition attached. “ Ask, and 
it shall be given you.” 

If it were possible to know now the things that we shall know 
hereafter, then trial would cease to try us— to test us. The 
troubles of this life would seem such motes in the eternal light of 


A LOST SOH. 


79 


the life to come that we should probably watch the course of them 
with the interest of children watching motes in the sunbeams of a 
summer’s day. 

But “ we know not now.’* Herein lies the power, the grand, 
training, strengtuening, perfecting power of suffering. 

We might certainly know much more than we do know it we 
were not so impatient in acquiring the knowledge that can only 
come through much tribulation. 

Still, knowledge must be limited; faith, belief, lies under the re- 
straint. 

Even when faith is most difficult we can rest assured that the 
God, without whose prescience not a sparrow falls to the ground, 
does not permit our smallest trouble to fall upon us without His de- 
liberate intention. 

“ Behold, haypy is the man whom God correcteth.” 

Let another who has written of the mystery of suffering say a few 
striking words here. 

“ You see one to-day loving God and toiling for him with diligence 
and fervor, but with strange inconsistencies in character of which 
he is all unconscious. Pride still rules the will, although it feeds 
itself with the things of God. You see him not again, it may be 
for years, but when you meet once more you are struck with his 
humility, his self-restraint, and his beautiful tenderness. You seek 
to know the secret of this change, and he tells you that it was in the 
school of affliction that his character was formed.” 

Not a wicked man to begin with, mark you, and not tried by 
some brief ordeal, but trained perfectly in the school of affliction. 

“ Therefore despise not the chastening of the Almighty.” 

” For He maketh sore, and bindeth up: He woundeth, and His 
hands make whole. 

” He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall 
no evil touch thee.” 

“ He from the stone will wring celestial dew, 

If but the prisoner’s heart be faithful found, and true.” 

No evil, but only good — good that yourself shall yet acknowledge. 

Take courage! Hold thee still in the Lord, and abide patiently 
upon Him. 

******* 

Agnes Dyne strove through those dark long days not impatiently. 
A new trouble had fallen upon her — upon all of them. Joshua 
Serlcote was ill, not able to leave his room— very often not able to 
rise from his bed for days together. Dr. Sargent was puzzled, and 
this was not to be wondered at. He had some suspicion that he 
w^as expected to ” minister to a mind diseased ” — nay, more than a 
suspicion, for the old man’s mind wandered at times, and betiayed 
the nature and cause of its disease. 

” It was those eight last days that did it,” he said, one evening, 
waking up out of a troubled sleep. He was lying on the sofa by 
the fire. Agnes and Elizabeth were in the room, and the doctor 
was seated near his patient, watching the complicated symptoms 
that made his diagnosis such a difficult matter. To an unpracticed 


80 


A LOST SON. 


eye it might have seemed that Joshua Serlcote had never looked 
better in his whole lite than he did that evening. There was a glow 
ot feverish color on his face; his gray eye, that had looked so dull 
and leaden, was bright and blue; his white hair shone in the lamp- 
light like silver thread; he made quite a picture lying there, witli 
his head on a soft crimson cushion. 

“Eight whole days,” he went on, wanderingly. “Much may 
happen in that time. It was my doing — I did it. 1 would not let 
Agnes open the letter. It 1 had given her some money to send to 
him he would have stayed in the lodging, and Martin would have 
found him there and brought him back. I wanted to do it; all the 
while 1 vranted to do it, but I couldn’t, 1 couldn’t. 1 don’t know 
why, 1 don’t know why! 1 wanted him, 1 wanted my boy, my 
Absalom 1 Oh, Absalom ! my son, my son ! would to God 1 had died 
for thee!’' 

Then he seemed to rouse himself for a little while — to recognize 
those about him. He talked quite coherently, making no more 
mention of his son. The old habit of silence on the point nearest 
to his heart was strong upon him still in his conscious moments. 
But these conscious moments did not last long on such an evening 
as this. Relapse came; he went on betraying himself, causing others 
to betray themselves, until Dr. Sargent went homeward, thinking 
as he went that in all his professional experience he had never 
known anything more inexplicable than this continued grief for 
such a scapegrace as Julian Serlcote had been. 

As the autumn deepened into winter, contrary to any one’s ex- 
pectation, Joshua Serlcote began to recover, and went on recoveiing 
up to a certain point. There he stopped, a broken-down, worn-out 
old man with one idea. 

It was not, as people hinted, softening of the brain that he suffered 
from, but softening ot the heart that had been overhardened. 

He tried to attend to business matters as usual, but it was well for 
him and for his wife and children that he had Martin Brooke at his 
right hand. More and more he grew to rely upon Martin. His 
pride and his reserve had deserted liim altogether. Care and atten- 
tion, and even tenderness, were accepted by him gratefully now, 
and there was no lack of these things. Sorrow had wrought strange 
changes in that hard, narrow household in the Corn Market. 

Still it was a sad household. The shadow of the great grief that 
had rested upon it was slow to pass away. The end of it— it end it 
had proved— had been so dark and bewildering. Even that strong, 
almost deathless hope of Agnes’ had been crushed. There were 
times when it seemed to her that it would have been rest and com- 
fort to have seen Julian die, or even to have known certainly that 
lie bad been seen to die. But she spoke to no one of her own grief. 
AYhen she spoke of Julian at all it was to comfort his father. 

Latterly Joshua Serlcote had fallen into a habit into which people 
who have much care and sorrow often fall, a habit of talking to 
himself as he went about the house. He had only one topic— that 
lost son of his whom he might have found if he >^ould. 

That was all his misery now. His prodigal son had returned, in 
licart, if not in person. “ And I didn’t go out to meet him,” the 
old man would murmur, shaking his head; “no, 1 didn’t run to 


A LOST SON. 81 

meet him. I forbade him to come neai; I barred my door, and he 
tell down and died, and I never cared. 

“ No, no, not that; what am 1 sayin^^? 1 did care; 1 cared with 
all my soul; but 1 was mad; 1 know I was mad; 1 didn’t know 
what 1 was doing. 

One day Agnes overheard him. She had caught her own name. 
“ Agues said the Good Shepnerd laid His sheep on His shoulder,’* 
her uncle was saying, mournfully. She went to his side, and put 
her hand within his arm soothingl 3 ^ 

“ Doesn’t that comfort you. Uncle Joshua?” she asked. 

“ Comfort me! No; how can it comfort me? What did I do?” 
‘‘ 1 was not thinking of what you did; I was thinking of what the 
Good Shepherd did for our wanderer, how He sought him and 
found him, and — it He took him home, how tenderly He took him. 
Sometimes it comforts me w’hen 1 can find no other comfort.” 

” iyile took him home! AVhy do you say * if ’?” 

“Because 1 am not sure that Julian is dead,” the girl leplieci, 
W’ith an emphasis that betraj^ed to herself the existence of a feeling 
she had hardly dared to suspect herself of entertaining. 


CHAPTER XV. 

IN THE SNOW. 

Might I not tell 

Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given. 

And vows, where there was never need of vows, 

And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap 
Hung tranced from all pulsation. 

Tennyson. 

Christmas-tide that year was a clear still time. A light snow 
had fallen a day or two before, and had been followed by a frost; 
the air was calm — almost mild in its utter calmness. 

The night of Christmas Eve was a night of unusual beauty. The 
dark indigo sky was studded with brightly burning stars. The 
snow-covered roofs of the houses of Lyme-St. -Mary’s stood out in 
clear relief. The silence was only broken by the bells at midnight. 
They rang out as usual, having a message for whosoever would 
listen — a message of peace and joy and holy mirth. 

The moon rose late, heightening the beauty and holiness of the 
night or rather of the morning. Her first rays fell slowly athwait 
the white roofs, came slanting down into the deserted streets. They 
were not 'duite deserted; one tall slight figure was wandering there. 
He had been wandering all night in the shadow of the houses; mov- 
ing slowly from street to street, stopping to rest, moving on again, 
and again resting. 

AVas he wandering aimlessly? or did he need strength of mind or 
body to carry out his aim? He seemed to avoid one street, the Corn 
Market. More than once he turned away after he had entered it. 

The morning wore on, calmly, silentl 3 % gloriously. The moon 
shone out more brightly, silvering the church tower, the rime-laden 
trees, the quaint chimney stacks. The tall slowly moving figure 


S2 


A LOST SON. 


Still soii<;lit what shade there was to be found, but he began to rest 
more frequently aud for longer spaces of lime. 

Suddenly he seemed to make a great eftort. He rose to his feet, 
stood awhile, covering his face with his hands; then he went on, 
evidently with more of resoluteness than of strength to support him. 

He was not the only man In Lyme-St. -Mary’s who was watching 
the dawn of that Christmas Day. The sweet holiness of the nignt 
had been mingled with bitter memories for Joshua Serlcote; too 
bitter to permit him to sleep. It seemed to him that if he could 
have gone back a year of his life — but one year, he might have been 
happier. The sin of unforgiveness had been on his soul even 
then, but he had not been hardened and harrowed with the knowl- 
edge of the consequence of his sin. 

He had risen early. The house was chill and dim; he went 
about with his candle in his hand, but he could find no place invit- 
ing enough to induce him to sit down. The empty grates were 
white with ashes; the dreary ghost of the day before lingered every- 
where. 

Presently he went out to the narrow high- walled garden at the 
back of the house. The moon was disappearing; one by one the 
stars were failing out of the sky, somewhere beyond the horizon of 
Lyme-St. Mary’s the dawn might be appearing. There was a 
strange mingling of lights and shadows. The ivy that hung from 
the wall was covered with hoar-frost; the lightly-lying snow looked 
soft and pure. Ko sound tell through the silence. 

There was something strangely impressive about that Christmas 
morning. Joshua Serlcote walked up and down the path nearest 
to the outer wall, feeling wrought upon, he knew not how, he 
dreamed not wh3^ He was conscious of no preseniiment, of no 
particular emotion save his sadness and remorse; yet still there 
seemed to be something that he could neither understand nor define. 
He could best express it to himself by saying that he felt as if he 
were not alone, as if some one were watching him as he walked so 
heavily to and fro. 

There was no one watching him, but the feeling grew upon him 
irresistibly, making him even more nervous and restless than be* 
fore. The light was strengthening a little; he could see into the 
nooks and corners, behind the old broken fountain, and under the 
leafless blackthorn bush. There was not so much as a stray spar- 
row to break his solitude. 

There was a narrow round-topped door in the wall, half-hidden 
by the ivy ; in his restlessness he unbolted it and peered out. No one 
w'as stirring. The shutters of the opposite houses were closed, the 
upper blinds drawn; the strange lights and the deep blue shadows 
were full of mystery. 

He Stood for a little while, leaning against the door-post. Was 
he falling asleep? Was he dreaming? Was it in a horrible night- 
mare that he saw a man lying dead almost at his feet? 

Joshua Serlcote did not move; he had no power to move. He 
stood for a moment fascinated by terror. The dark figure was lying 
in the shaaow of a wall, close to the garden door. 

The old man recovered himself presently. Perhaps it was only- 
some reveler sleeping ofi his night’s revel in the snow. 


A LOST SOK. 83 

He spoke, but there was no answer. Then he stooped and touched 
the figure as it lay; it was quite chill, almost rigid. 

He had not much strength to spare, but he strove to raise the un- 
conscious head a little. A strange tremor came over liim as he did 
so. The man’s features were turned downward and away from 
him, but the fair hair with the rich deep curves struck him as the 
perfume of a dead rose strikes the man whose heart’s love is dead, 
and who has nothing that he can see with his eyes or touch with 
his hands save that withered memory-laden flower. 

Another moment and Joshua Serlcote knew that he held in his 
arms his own son, but whether dead or living he knew not. He had 
not strength left within him to discern. 

Faintness came over him, but he made a desperate effort to keep 
his consciousness. He never knew how he reached Martin’s room, 
nor had he any recollection of the things that followed. When he 
came fully to himself he was in Julian’s room, and his wife was 
crying softly. 

He raised himself and looked round. It had been no dream. Dr. 
Sargent was bending over Julian, who was lying on his own bed 
with closed eyes and pallid face. Agnes was there too, and Eliza- 
beth, but all was very still, very silent. 

It was some time before the old man could speak. At last he 
said, faintly, 

“ Tell me— tell me; is he dead?” 

No, he is not dead,” some one said, in a whisper. 

It was Marlin who answered, and then Joshua knew that Martin 
was supporting him. 

No, Julian was not dead; he was alive again. He had been lost, 
now he was found. He was at home, in his own room, among his 
own people, and he knew it, but he could make no sign. 

-je- -Jt -x- * * * * 

It was late in the evening of that eventful Christmas Day before 
Joshua Serlcote fouud himself alone with his son. Julian had grad- 
ually recovered; he was able to speak; but yet these two had said 
no word to each other. 

The old man had had to plead earnestly for these few minutes, 
and he had promised to say little, to say nothing that might cause 
aaitaiion. Martin had agreed with him that it might possibly set 
Julian’s heart at rest and tend to his recovery, it he were given to 
know thal he might again feel at one with his father. 

^ Joshua Serlcote bent over his son as he might have done over a 
little child. His worn, anxious face was in strange contrast to 
Julian’s, which was wan and sad, but was already beginning to lake 
on the expression of unutterable calm seen only on the faces of those 
who have had but small hope of living out the storm. 

It was a strangely changed face; none of those who had looked 
upon it had felt that they were looking upon the Julian Serlcote 
they had known before. They had yet to make acquaintance with 
this patitence, this gentleness, this new humility. 

There was silence between the father and son for a few moments. 
Their eyes met, and each knew that tl)ere was but liK4e to be said. 
Presently Julian put out his thin, wasted hand. 


84 


A LOST SOK. 


“ Forgive me, falheri’" he said, brokenly. 

And the old man burst into tears. 

“Forgive me, Julian— forgive me he cried. No more words 
were said. 


EPILOGUE. 

Nor deem the irrevocable past 
As wholly wasted, wholly vain, 

If, rising on its wrecks, at last 
To something nobler we attain. 

Longfellow. 

No wise writer of fiction attempts the rehabilitation of the char- 
acter that has served him as his point ol darkest shade. I'he process 
interferes with the fine proportion required by a quick sense of the 
artistic. Thus we have to leave Becky Sharpe playing out a play 
consistent to the last; Tito Melema lies dead on the banks of the 
Arno; Hetty Sorrel’s grave is in a foreign land; and so it is through 
almost the entire list of works of real art. 

As we have said, the writers are wise in their generation, but it 
may be that the generations to come will dare to look into the face of 
human truth even when her aspect is not poetically consistent. Has 
human nature grown shallower? If a man sin as heinously as David 
sinned, is it not possible that he should repent as heartily, return 
as completely? We would have our heroes heroic from the begin- 
ning, not made heroic by rising 

“ on stepping stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things. ’’j 

If the painting of return and repentance be difficult to the writer 
of fiction, we may rest assured that the actual living out of such 
change is not easy in fact. Apart from all the difficulties that come 
to a man from within, lie the yet more inexplicable difficulties that 
come from without. This is beyond ail question a Christian land, 
but nothing astonishes the majority of its people more than any 
visible real result of Christianity. 

Julian had much to live down — the doubt of one set of his fellow- 
townspeople, the amusement of another, the cold contempt of a 
third; but he did live these things dawn, and bravely. Joshua 
Serlcote lived to see his son an honored man, and trusted; lived to 
see his niece a happy woman, much loved and much loving; lived 
to find joy in the affection of his little grandchildren, who grew up 
up about his knee; and lived to thank God, if not in the words, at 
least in the spirit of our master-poet — 

“ Let one more attest, 

I have lived, seen God’s hand through a life-time, 

And all was for best.” 


THE END. 


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300 A Gilded Sin, and A Brid^ of 

Love. By the author of “Dora 
Thorne ” 10 

301 Dark Days. By Hugh Conway. 10 

302 The Blatchford Bequest. By 

Hugh Conway 10 

303 Ingledew House, and More Bit- 

ter than Death. By the author 
of “Dora Thorne” 10 

304 In Cupid’s Net. By the author 

of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

305 A Dead Heart, and Lady Gwen- 

doline’s Dream. By the au- 
thor of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

306 A Golden Dawn, and Love for a 

Day. By the author of “ Dora 
Thorne'^’ 10 

307 Two Kisses, and Like No Other 

Love. By the author of “ Dora 
Thorne’’’ 10 

308 Beyond Pardon 20 

309 The Pathfinder. By J. Feni- 

more Cooper 20 

310 The Prairie. By J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

311 Two Years Before the Mast. By 

R. H. Dana, Jr 20 

312 A Week in Killarney. By “ The 

Duchess” 10 

313 The Lover’s Creed. By Mrs. 

Cashel Hoey 15 

314 Peril. By Jessie Fothergill — 20 

315 The Mistletoe Bough. Edited 

by Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

316 Sworn to Silence ; or. Aline Rod- 

ney’s Secret. By Mrs. Alex. 
McVeigh Miller, 20 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY —Pocket Edition. 


NO. PRICK. 

817 By Mead and Stream. Charles 

Gibbon 20 

818 The Pioneers; or. The Sources 

of the Susquehanna. By J. 
Fenimore Cooper 20 

819 Face to Face : A Fact in Seven 

Fables. By R. E. Francillon. 10 

820 A Bit of Human Nature. By 

David Christie Murray 10 

821 The Prodigals : And Their In- 

heritance. By Mrs. Oliphant 10 

822 A Woman’s Love-Story 10 

82:1 A Willful Maid 20 

324 In Luck at Last. By Walter 

Besant 10 

825 The Portent. By George Mac- 

donald 10 

826 Phantastes. A Faerie Romance 

for Men and Women. By 
George Macdonald 10 

827 Raymond’s Atonement. (From 

the German of E. Werner.) 

By Christina Tyrrell 20 

828 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. By 

F. Du Boisgobey. First half, 20 
l>28 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. By 

F. Du Boisgobey. Second half 20 

829 The Polish Jew. ByErckmann- 

Chatrian 10 

330 May Blossom ; or, Between Two 

Loves. By Margaret Lee — 20 

331 Gerald. By Eleanor C. Price.. 20 

832 Judith Wynne. A Novel 20 

833 Frank Fairlegh ; or, Scenes 

from the Life of a Private 
Pupil. By Frank E. Smedley 20 

834 A Marriage of Convenience. By 

Harriett Jay 10 

335 The White Witch. A Novel.. . . 20 

836 Philistia. By Cecil Power 20 

837 Memoirs and Resolutions of 

Adam Graeme of Mossgray, 
Including Some Chronicles of 
the Borough of Fendie. By 
Mrs. Oliphant 20 

838 The Family Difficulty. By Sarah 

Doudney 10 

839 Mrs. Vereker’s Courier Maid. 

By Mrs. Alexander 10 

340 Under Which King? By Comp- 

ton Reade 20 

341 Madolin Rivers ; or. The Little 

Beauty of Red Oak Semiuaiy. 

By Laura Jean Libbey 20 

842 The Baby, and One New Year’s 

Eve. By “ The Duchess ” 10 

843 The Talk of the Town. By 

James Payn 20 

844 “ The Wearing of the Green.” 

By Basil 20 

345 Madam. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

846 Tumbledown Farm. By Alan 

Muir 10 

847 As Avon Flows. By Henry Scott 

Vince 20 

34^ Post to Finish. A Racing 

Eomwige. By Hawley Smart 20 


NO. PRICK. 

349 The Two Admirals. A Tale of 

the Sea. By J. Fenimore 
Cooper 20 

350 Diana of the Crossways. By 

George Meredith 10 

351 The House on the Moor. By 

Mrs. Oliphant 20 

352 At Any Cost. By Edward Gar- 

rett 10 

353 The Black Dwarf, and A Leg- 

end of Montrose. By Sir Wal- 
ter Scott 20 

354 The Lottery of Life. A Story 

of New York Twenty Years 
Ago. By John Brougham... 20 

355 That Terrible Man. By W. E. 

Norris. The Princess Dago- 
mar of Poland. By Heinrich 


Felbermann 10 

356 A Good Hater. By Frederick 

Boyle 20 

357 John. A Love Story. By Mrs. 

Oliphant 20 

358 Within the Clasp. By J. Ber- 

wick Harwood 20 

359 The Water-Witch. By J. Feni- 

more Cooper 20 

360 Ropes of Sand. By R. E. Fran- 

cillon 20 

361 The Red Rover. A Tale of the 

Sea. By J. Fenimore Cooper 20 

362 The Bride of Lammermoor. 

By Sir Walter Scott .20 

363 The Surgeon’s Daughter. By 

Sir Walter Scott 10 

364 Castle Dangerous. By Sir Wal- 

ter Scott 10 

365 George Christy; or, The Fort- 

unes of a Minstrel. By Tony 
Pastor 20 

366 The Mysterious Hunter; or, 

The Man of Death. By Capt. 

L. C. Carleton 20 

367 Tie and Trick. By Hawley Smart 20 

368 The Southern Star ; or. The Dia- 

mond Land. By Jules Verne 20 

369 Miss Bretherton. By Mrs. Hum- 

phry Ward 10 

370 Lucy Crofton. By Mrs. Oliphant 10 

371 Margaret Maitland. By Mrs. Oli- 

phant 20 

372 Phyllis’ Probation. By the au- 

thor of “ His Wedded Wife 10 

373 Wing-and-Wing. J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

374 The Dead Man’s Secret ; or, The 

Adventures of a Medical Stu- 
dent. By Dr. Jupiter Paeon.. 20 

375 A Ride to Khiva. By Capt. Fred 

Burnaby, of the Royal Horse 
Guards ; 20 

376 The Crime of Christmas-Day. 

By the author of “ My Duc- 
ats and My Daughter 10 

377 Magdalen Hepburn: A Story 

of the Scottish Reformation. 

By Mrs. Oliphaut. 




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NO. PRICE. 

878 Homeward Bound; or, The 

Chase. J. Feniinore Cooper. . 20 


379 Home as Found. (Sequel to 

“ Homeward Bound.”) By J. 
Fenimore Cooper 20 

380 Wyandotte; or. The Hutted 

Knoll. J. Feniinore Cooper. . 20 

381 The Red Cardinal. By Frances 

Elliot 10 

382 Three Sisters; or, Sketches of 

a Highly Original Family. 

By Elsa D’Esterre-Keeling. . . 10 

383 Introduced to Society. By Ham- 

ilton Aide 10 

384 On Horseback Through Asia 

Minor. Capt. Fred Burnaby. 20 

385 The Headsman; or, The Abbaye 

des Vignerons. By J. Feni- 
more Cooper 20 

38G Led Astray ; or, “La Petite Comt- 
esse.” By Octave E’enillet. . . 10 

387 The Secret of the Cliffs. By 

Charlotte French 20 

388 Addie’s Husband; or, Through 

Clouds to Sunshine. By the 
author of “Love or Lands?” 10 
3«9 Ichabod. By Bertha Thomas... 10 

390 Mildred Trevanion. By “ The 

Duchess” 10 

391 The Heart of Mid-Lothian. By 

Sir Walter Scott 20 

392 Peveril of the Peak. By Sir Wal- 

ter Scott 20 

393 The Pirate. By Sir Walter Scott 20 

394 The Bravo. By J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

395 The Archipelago on Fire. By 

Jules Verne 10 

396 Robert Ord’s Atonement. By 

Rosa Nouchette Carey 20 

397 Lionel Lincoln ; or. The Leaguer 

of Boston. By J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

898 Matt: A Tale of a Caravan. 
By Robert Buchanan 10 

399 Miss Brown. By Vernon Lee. . 20 

400 The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish. 

By J. Fenimore Cooper 20 

401 Waverley. By Sir Walter Scott 20 

402 Lilliesleaf; or, Passages in the 

Life of Mrs. Margaret Mait- 
land of Sunnyside. By Mrs. 
Oliphant 20 

403 An English Squire. C. R. Cole- 

ridge 20 

404 In Durance Vile, and Other 

Stories. By “ The Duchess ” . 10 

405 My Friends and I. Edited by 

Julian Sturgis 10 

406 The Merchant’s Clerk. By Sam- 

uel Warren 10 

407 Tylney Hall. By Thomas Hood 20 

408 Lester’s Secret. By Mary Cecil 

Hay 20 

409 Roy’s Wife. By G. J. Whyte- 

Melville 20 

410 Old Lady Mary. By Mrs. Oli- 

phant......... 10 


NO. PRICK. 


411 A Bitter Atonement. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“Dora Thorne” 20 

412 Some One Else. ByB. M.Croker 20 

413 Afloat and Ashore. By J. Feni- 

more Cooper 20 

414 Miles AVallingford. (Sequel to 

“ Afloat and Ashore.”) By J. 
Fenimore Cooper 20 

415 The Ways of the Hour. By J. 

Fenimore Cooper 20 

416 Jack Tier ; or. The Florida Reef. 

By J. Fenimore Cooper 20 

417 The Fair Maid of Perth ; or, St. 

Valentine's Day. By Sir Wal- 
ter Scott 20 

418 St. Ronan’s Well. By Sir Wal- 

ter Scott 20 

419 The Chainbearer ; or. The Little- 

page Manuscripts. By J. 
Fenimore Cooper 20 

420 Satanstoe; or. The Littlepage 

l\Ianuscripts. By J. Fenimore 
Cooper 20 


421 The Redskins; or, Indian and 

Injin. Being the conclusion 
of The Littlepage Manu- 
scripts. J. Fenimore Cooper 20 

422 Precaution. J. Fenimore Cooper 20 
4i^ The Sea-Lions; or. The Lost 

Sealers. J. Fenimore Cooper 20 
424 Mercedes of Castile; or. The 
Voyage to Cathay. B}^ J. 


Fenimore Cooper — 20 

425 The Oak Openings ; or. The Bee- 

Hunter. J. Fenimore Cooper. 20 

426 Venus’s Doves. By Ida Ash- 

w'orth Taylor 20 

427 The Remarkable History of Sir 

Thomas Upmore, Bart., M.P., 
formerly known as “Tommy 
Upmore.” R. D. Blackmore. 20 

428 Z#ro: A Story of Monte-Carlo. 

By Mrs. Campbell Praed 10 

429 Boulderstone; or. New Men and 

Old Populations. By Wiliam 
Sime 10 

430 A Bitter Reckoning. By the 

author of “By Crooked Paths” 10 

431 The Monikins. By J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

432 The Witch’s Head. By H. Rider 

Haggard 20 

433 My Sister Kate. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne,” and A Rainy June. 

By “Ouida” 10 

434 Wyllard’s Weird. By Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

435 Klvtia: A Story of Heidelberg 

Castle. By George Taylor.... 20 

436 Stella. By Fannj’- Lewald 20 

437 Life and Adventures of Martin 

Chuzzlewit. By Charles Dick- 
ens. First half 20 

437 Life and Adventures of Martin 
Chuzzlewit. By Charles Dick- 
ens. Second h^lf 20 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY -Pocket Edition 


NO. PRICE. 


438 Found Out. Helen B. Mathers. 10 
430 Great Expectations. By Chas. 

Dickens 20 

440 Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings. By 

Charles Dickens 10 

441 A Sea Change. By Flora L. 

Shaw 20 

442 Ranthorpe. By George Henry 

Lewes 20 

443 The Bachelor of The Albany. . . 10 

444 The Heart of Jane Warner. By 

Florence Marry at 20 

445 The Shadow of a Crime. By 

Hall Caine 20 

440 Dame Durden. By “ Rita ” 20 

447 American Notes. By Charles 

Dickens 20 

448 Pictures From Italy, and The 

Mud fog Papers, &c. By Chas. 
Dickens ... 20 

449 Peeress and Player. By Flor- 

ence IMarryat 20 

450 Godfrey Helstone. ByGeorgiana 

M. Craik 20 

451 Market Harborough, and Inside 

the Bar. By G. J. Whyte- 
Melville 20 

452 In the West Countrie. By May 

Crommelin 20 

453 The Lottery Ticket. By F. Du 

Boisgobey 20 

454 The IMystery of Edwin Drood. 

By Charles Dickens 20 

455 Lazarus in London. By F. W. 

Robinson 20 


NO. PRICE. 

456 Sketches by Boz. Illustrative of 

Every-day Life and Every-day 
People. By Charles Dickens. 20 

457 The Russians at the Gates of 

Herat. By Charles Marvin. .. 10 
459 A Woman's Temptation. By 


Charlotte M. Braeme, author 

of “Dora Thorne” 20 

460 Under a Shadow. By Charlotte 
M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 

Thorne” 20 

462 Alice’s Adventures in Wonder- 
land. By Lewis Carroll. With 
forty-two illustrations by 
John Tenniel 20 

465 The Earl’s Atonement. By Char- 

lotte ]\r. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne ” 20 

466 Between Two Loves. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne ” 20 

467 A Struggle for a Ring. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“Dora Thorne” 20 

468 The Fortunes, Good and Bad, 

of a Sewing-Girl. By Char- 
lotte M. Stanley 10 

469 Lady Darner’s Secret. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“Dora Thorne” 20 

470 Evelyn’s Folly. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 20 

471 Thrown on the World. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 

“Dora Thorne” 20 

473 A Lost Son. By Mary Linskill. 10 


MUNRO’S PUBLICATIONS. 


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MRS. ALEXANDER’S WORKS. 

30 Her Dearest Foe SO 

36 The Wooing O’t 20 

46 The Heritage of Langdale 20 

370 Ralph Wilton’s Weird 10 

400 Which Shall it Be? 20 

532 Maid, Wife, or Widow 10 

1231 The Freres 20 

1259 Valerie’s Fate 10 

1391 Look Before You Leap 20 

1502 The Australian Aunt 10 

1595 The Admiral’s Ward 20 

1721 The Executor 20 

1934 Mrs. Vereker’s Courier Maid 10 

WILLIAM BLACK’S WORKS. 

13 A Princess of Thule 20 

S8 A Daughter of Heth 10 

47 In Silk Attire 10 

48 The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton 10 

51 KUmeny JO 


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No. 1. OLD SLEUTH THE DETECTIVE. 

A dashing romance, detailing in graphic style the hair-breadth escapes and 
thrilling adventures of a veteran agent of the law. 

No. THE KING OF THE DETECTIVES. 

In this story the shrewdness and cunning of a master mind are delineated 

in a fascinating manner. 

No. 3. OLD SLEUTH’S TRIUMPH. 

IN TWO HALVES— 10 CENTS EACH. 

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No. 4. UNDER A MILLION DISGUISES. 

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various features of metropolitan life— the places of amusement, high 
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No. 6.-OLD ELECTRICITY, THE LIGHTNING DETECTIVE. 

For ingenuity of plot, quick and exciting succession of dramatic incidents, 
this great story has not an equal in the whole range of detective literature. 

No. y.-THE SHADOW DETECTIVE. 

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No. 8.-RED LIGHT WILL, THE ItlVER DETECTIVE. 

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interest. 

No. 9.--IRON BURGESS, THE GOVERNMENT DETECTIVE. 

The many sensational incidents of a detective’s life in chasing to cover i lie 
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THE SEASIDE LU^RART. — Ordmart/ Edition, 


53 The Monarch of Mincing Lane. 10 

79 Madcap Violet (small type) 10 

604 Madcap Violet (large type) 20 

242 The Three Feathers 10 

390 The Marriage of Moira Fergus, and The Maid of Killeena. 10 

417 Macleod of Dare 20 

451 Lady Silverdale’s Sweetheart 10 

568 Green Pastures and Piccadilly 10 

816 White Wings: A Yachting Romance 10 

826 Oliver Goldsmith 10 

950 Sunrise: A Story of These Times 20 

1025 The Pupil of Aurelius 10 

1032 That Beautiful Wretch 10 

1161 The Four MacNicols 10 

1264 Mr. Pisistratus Brown, M.P., in the Highlands 10 

1429 An Adventure in Thule. A Story for Young People 10 

1556 Shandon Bells 20 

1683 Yolande 20 

1893 Judith Shakespeare: Her Love Affairs and other Advent- 
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MISS M. E. BR/VDDON’S WORKS. 

26 Aurora Floyd 20 

69 To the Bitter End 20 

89 The Levels of Arden 20 

95 Dead Men’s Shoes 20 

109 Eleanor’s Victory 20 

114 Darrell Markham 10 

140 The Lady Lisle 10 

171 Hostages to Fortune. 20 

190 Henry Dunbar 20 

215 Birds of Prey 20 

235 An Open Verdict. 20 

251 Lady Audley’s Secret 20 

254 The Octoroon 10 

260 Charlotte’s Inheritance 20 

287 Leighton Grange 10 

295 Lost for Love 20 

322 Dead-Sea Fruit 20 

459 The Doctor’s Wife 20 

469 Rupert Godwin 20 


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